Paris London 2025 Trip Part 1

I recently returned from a pretty long trip to Paris and London with my family. I ended up sketching a lot more than I normally do during trips, largely thanks to things that I learned during the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Poznan (more on that in a later post). Here is part 1 of some highlights from my trip.

Quick sketch in a Stillman & Birn pocket beta while I was waiting for my flight

Centre Pompidou, my favourite museum in the world, was closing down until 2030 (!) so I went to pay it a last visit. Already parts of the colourful outside facade have been repainted white, and I’ve never seen the area around the museum so deserted.

The library was the only area still accessible, and it had been turned into a giant project playground for German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans to work with. It was something that only Pompidou could do, and it was breathtaking, thought provoking, fun, interesting, and unique. I wish I could have spent hours there, but at this point in my trip I became badly ill and for the entire Paris leg of the trip I was struggling.

I ended up largely not eating in Paris, but this was my first meal there – in the fantastic Patisserie Viennoise in the Latin Quarter.

Stillman and Birn pocket alpha watercolour sketch

We also went to a new museum, the Bourse de Commerce and I saw this great artwork on the way there:

The museum was in between putting up exhibitions, so while a large part of it was closed we managed to view some great and moving art pieces with relatively few crowds and at a discounted price. I did a VERY quick sketch while I was there:

This is the artwork that I was sketching.

And this little fellow is also part of the art exhibits there:

We then took the Eurostar to London. This is where I switched sketchbooks – this sketch of a boy and his father having lunch at a table across from me at Wagamama is the last sketch I created in my Stillman and Birn pocket beta. The beta has decent watercolour paper but it’s not half as good as the paper in my Etchr labs watercolour sketchbook, and the glued in pages make it a struggle to create full page spread sketches, as you can see here:

Last trip sketch in the Stillman and Birn pocket beta.

I created my first sketch in an Etchr lab cold pressed watercolour notebook while in the Greenwich Park herb garden and the paper is astonishingly good. Here’s the ink sketch (my tree sketches have gotten so much better thanks to a workshop I took in Poznan):

And here is the watercolour:

The paper not only makes the colours pop, it actually allowed me ample time and space to work with the washes, adding layers of well blended colours that gave depth and life to the scene. Never have I ever seen the importance of good quality watercolour paper demonstrated so well. I have about half a dozen sketches of this garden throughout the years and this is by far the best one.

That’s it for part 1, I’ll try and upload part 2 later this week.

Edit: part 2 can be found here.

Urban Sketching – Girl with Dog

Quick watercolour sketch in the park today.

Pen sketch before watercolours:

I’ve been travelling and sick hence the delay in posts, but I have a few posts drafted already so hopefully more to come soon…

Morning barista sketch

Went on a 5k run and then went to my favourite cafe and did a quick sketch of the barista. Had more time this morning than last time so this sketch is more detailed.

Quick cat sketch

My parents’ cats in action.

Morning sketch at my favourite cafe

My favourite barista, Orit, at work in Bakery North Dizengoff.

Stillman and Birn pocket beta, Windsor and Newton 0.5 fineliner, Roman Szmal Aquarius watercolours.

Last of the Squill Sketch

Sketched this on location and then it got too hot so I finished it with watercolours (my normal palette, but with more mixing than usual) at home. The paper is a Stillman and Birn pocket beta.

Here’s the original sketch:

Trying out a Renesans Paint and Brush

As part of the Urban Sketcher’s 2025 Symposium in Poznan I got a very generous goodie bag filled with art supplies from the Symposium sponsors. One of those sponsors was Renesans, a Polish art supply manufacturer, and they gave us a half pan of Kassel Earth extra fine watercolour and a number 3 synthetic watercolour brush.

Today I decided to try them out. I used a Stillman and Birn pocket beta, a Staedtler 0.8 pigment liner and only the Kassel Earth watercolour and the Renesans brush. This is the result:

It’s a sketch of a beautiful building across from a pond in a park in Poznan. I drew it from a photo that I took during my morning run through the park. I was planning on returning to the park during the Symposium but I ended up not having time.

This is the sketch:

I used some of what I learned in the symposium to create more realistic trees.

I rarely sketch in monochrome so this sketch was a challenge. It’s about seeing the grades and shades in a scene, and not the colours, and that’s a hard exercise.

This is the paint and brush on the sketchbook:

And this is a swab of the paint. It’s a classic Van Dyke brown, artist grade quality. The brush was surprisingly good, especially for a synthetic brush. It retained quite a lot of water, and it has a good, sharp point.

Though the paint pan has bubbles in it, which isn’t great, I am happy with the quality of the paint and I would consider using Renesans watercolours in the future. The brush is excellent and I am adding it to my rotation. What a wonderful gift to get!

End of Summer Sea View Sketch

I started this one yesterday on location and then discovered that I needed a proper brush to finish it and not just a waterbrush, so I finished it at home today. The flowers are squills, which have a dreadful name in English but they are magnificent flowers and the heralds of autumn.

This was drawn using a very limited and somewhat unusual palette – the Roman Szmal Aquarius mini watercolour set for urban sketchers. I purchased it and the 50th anniversary special edition Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Lush set at the Urban Sketchers Poznan Symposium‘s art market. It was a real challenge to work with a set that didn’t include any of the colours that I’m used to using, and combine it with a medium (Neocolors II) that I’ve only used once or twice before. I like the results enough to challenge myself to create more of these in the future.

This is what was done on location:

Radius Settimo Cielo Blu, Diamine 150 Regency Blue, Diamine Forever Raven, Pilot Iroshizuku Sui gyoku

I just received a package from Fontoplumo and I immediately added the pen and inks it contained into rotation. While I already have a good amount of pens inked up, I really wanted to give the Radius 1934 Settimo Cielo Blu a try as soon as I got it. Not only is it a gorgeous looking pen, but I was also curious to see how it compares both the the vintage Radius fountain pen that I own and to my Leonardo fountain pens, as they are also the makers of the Radius.

Apart from the Radius the package contained two inks that I was interested in using as soon as possible, so I inked up a Pelikan M200 Petrol with Pilot Iroshizuku Sui gyoku and a Lamy AL Star with Diamine Forever Raven. The Radius got inked up withe Diamine 150 years Anniversary Regency Blue, a rich royal blue with moderate red sheen that fits the blue swirls on the pen body.

From left to right: Pelikan M200 Petrol, Lamy AL Star Black, Radius Settimo Celio Blu

Comparing the Diamine Forever Raven to Sailor Black reveals that the Sailor is slightly darker than the Raven, but both are dark enough to count as proper black inks (and not dark grey or brown). They both have a bit of shading, but the Raven interests me as a waterproof ink, so I’ll be testing it with some watercolour sketches later on.

The Pilot Iroshizuku Sui gyoku isn’t what I expected. I was hoping for a more prominently green ink, but Sui gyoku is more of a turquoise than a green. I like turquoise inks so that won’t be a problem, but it means that I’m still on the lookout for an interesting, bright, readable green. The shading on this ink is delightful.

Diamine 150 Anniversary Regency Blue is a rich royal blue with some red sheen. It’s very saturated, especially in the Radius nib.

The Radius interested me not so much as a revival of the old Italian brand since the original Radius was a minor pen manufacturer, and I wasn’t blown away by the vintage Radius that I own. It seemed to me that the old Radius brand was busy making local copies of what Parker was doing at the time, which is understandable. However, Radius as a sub-brand of Leonardo is interesting since Leonardo have been hiking their prices lately but the Radius remains more affordable and offers resins and pen bodies that are just as attractive as what Leonardo has to offer.

I love both the blue, white and brown swirly resin of this pen and the art deco-ish band. It’s a big wide pen, like the Leonardo pens and Viscontis, but light and comfortable to use.

One tiny minus with my pen is that as the bottom part of the body tapers down, a smudge of brown resin was left, making it look like there’s permanent dirt on the pen body. Not ideal, but it’s something I can live with.

Here’s a writing sample of all three inks on Col-O-Ring cards.

And as a silly little treat I also bought two cartridge boxes of Lamy Pokemon ink cartridges. They are filled with regular black Lamy ink cartridges, which I knew, but is still disappointing – a teal and a red would have been better.

Weekly Update: One Week 100 People, Newly Inked Pens and Preparing for a Doctor’s Visit

I finished the One Week 100 People challenge on day 4, but kept going for day 5 (which was yesterday) and added a few sketches on day 6 (even though the official challenge is 5 days long). It was the first time that I sketched only live subjects and not from photos, and it really pushed me to find ways to work fast.

Today I added a few final sketches to my Field Notes sketchbook, this time using Faber Castell Pitt brush pens for blocks of colour and a Pilot brush pen for the sketches themselves. I was trying to work mainly with silhouettes and capture people in movement. It took me longer than I thought to capture a mere 6 subjects, mostly because what people do when they walk around nowadays is stare at their phones.

As I wrote two fountain pens dry this week, I filled six new fountain pens, bringing my rotation up to nine pens. Next week I’ll write a post about the pens and inks that I chose, but I will say that there are some pretty rare ones in the rotation this time.

Next week is pretty stressful as I have some tests and a checkup coming up with my hemato-oncologist (that’s a cancer doctor that specializes in blood cancers, which is the kind of cancer that I’m in remission from). I will give out one important tip for anyone who is going to see a doctor for any reason:

Write down ahead of time whatever it is that is bothering you/you need help with, and make sure that it’s in order of importance. There’s a good chance that if you won’t do this you will forget things, or you’ll focus on the least important thing, or you’ll have trouble articulating the issue. A doctor’s office is a stressful location, so you want to take the time and prepare this list in advance when you are sitting calmly at home. Make sure that the first 2-3 items on that list are really the most important things that you want to focus on because there’s a good chance that you’ll only get to focus on these items (your time in there is going to be limited). Reference the list when in the doctor’s office (don’t be embarrassed, there’s nothing embarrassing about being prepared). Be clear and specific, and insist on getting all your questions answered when it comes to these things. Double check before you leave that all the medications you discussed and tests that the doctor ordered were properly documented. Doctors are people too and the electronic medical record systems they work with aren’t the best, so it’s worth checking that everything is in order before you leave (even if you do the check with the medical secretary, just so long as you’re still in the doctor’s office and any errors and omissions can be fixed).

Take care of yourself and have a great week!

Writing at Large

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Tag: Drawing