My first business trip- Attending the Prague Aquarius Sketchfest

   Leading Urban Sketchers Graz these past few years has been both a delight and a challenge. I love how after the pandemic slump it is growing again. I enjoy the spontaneity of meeting up with other creative people to sketch and 'discover' our city together. And I enjoy polishing up my sketching skills, finding interesting ways to use my sketchbook to bring more creativity into my studio practice. The challenge has come from the fact that although I am connected to many Urban Sketching Chapters online I have only once attended a meet up where I was simply the guest.  This one time, the sketchcrawl I attended in  Paris, lent me so much inspiration and really helped me think of ideas to make our meetups both more interesting and pleasant. It gave me little ideas about the regular meetups that we have weekly or bimonthly. 

   Urban Sketchers Prague is one of the larger Chapters in our section on Europe, and seeing that they were planning to host a sketch fest spanning 10 days I decided to attend and observe. I was able to learn quite a bit from them which I have noted down in my studio log and which is not intended to be the subject of this post. In this post I would like to share my (very brief) trip with you. 

The Graz- Prague train is direct, beginning here and ending there which made it an attractive option for travel. As I was able to book in advance and secure a sparschein for the trip I decided to upgrade to first class, a decision that I am so glad I made. The proximity to the dining car, the quiet carriage and the low number of people made my trip quite relaxing. I was able to sketch while listening to my audiobooks.

 

  Art nouvea everywhere, a Mucha Museum, extravagant interiors, passages. I had no expectation of Prague at all. It had never been on my list of cities to see which made it all the more surprising when I arrived. I had expected something similar to Maribor or Lublijana and was delighted with the pleathera of maintained art nouveau bildings, the cafes, art, and general energy of the city.  A fellow member of our group traveled to the sketchfest as well and we met at the train station and walked into town together.

 

   

   Dropping our things at our hotel we walked to the site of the first (for us) meet up. It was not that far but do to the circuitous route we took we were lucky that we had planned enough time. As the weather was rather blustery we sketched from inside a cafe where we were able to have a soup, one of the few good things I ate in there, while sitting in the window. Once the meetup was over we met went out to a pub as a group. 

 

 

   In the evening I took a walk through the city before going back to my room to write up a few of my observations of the sketching meet up.

As the theme of this trip was sketching I tried to squeeze in several sketching sessions each day. Having an evening cup of tea in the Cafe Louvre gave me the opportunity to include the billiard room (!) in my sketchbook.

My only full day included a lot of walking around and several sketching breaks before the late afternoon meetup. We went to the imperial cafe for breakfast which turned out to be a treasure trove of sketchable views. I only managed to do a quick impressionistic page before we headed toward the opera and old gate. The Mucha museum was a wonderful source of inspiration and then of course another sketching meetup.

   There were more people at this meetup although it started raining halfway through. We took refuge in a houseboot turned restaurant to finish the sketches. 

 

 

On the way back into town we stopped at Zlata Lod, a traditional art supply shop. I bought a sketchbook, and few aquarelle sticks, and a graphite stick.

   

 

 

   Art Nouvaeu gave way to Art Deco as the evening faded. The cafe in which we dined had a number of lighter options and a selection of delicious pastries. And of course, we sketched!

 

On my final Morning I got up early to sketch the Astronomical clock before we went up to the castle to meet the sketchers. Once arriving at the castle I decided to look at the museum and take photos for photo references rather than doing another sketch. The stained glass windows in the cathedral where especially nice.

  On the way to the train station we stopped at the national library which was unfortunately blocked off. We were only able to look from the door. I managed a last quick sketch of the staircase leading up to the bell tower while the rest of the group went up to see the city from above.

And then the train and home.

 All in all it was a productive trip in two ways, firstly it gave me a bit of insight into the running of a large group as well as an event. But perhaps even more it allowed me to discover a new city and devote nearly three days to sketching. I hope you enjoyed this little peek behind the scenes and are inspired to take your sketchbook along on your next short trip.

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