The Urban Sketchers International Symposium is the annual gathering of the global urban sketching community — thousands of artists, teachers, and enthusiasts from around the world, descending on one city for five days of drawing, workshops, and friendship.
Buenos Aires 2024 was extraordinary. A city made for sketchers: grand European boulevards, colorful La Boca, the tango halls of San Telmo, the vast Rio de la Plata waterfront. Every corner offered something worth drawing.
The symposium opened with a welcome session in one of Buenos Aires' grand historic theaters. Around me, hundreds of sketchbooks were already open. I had barely arrived and there was already so much to draw.
Each day began with a different guided sketching location — the old port, the Japanese gardens, the Recoleta cemetery with its extraordinary mausoleums, the food market at Mercado de San Telmo. We had the luxury of time: hours to stand and look and draw, guided by some of the world's best urban sketching instructors.
What I love most about the symposium is the sense of community. The shared language of sketching breaks every barrier — language, culture, background. We all understand the excitement of a great composition, the frustration of a perspective that won't work, the joy of a watercolor wash that lands perfectly.
The evenings were for tango. I spent two nights sketching in milongas — the dance halls where Buenos Aires' social life has revolved for over a century. The movement, the music, the emotion — all of it demanded to be drawn.
I left Buenos Aires with a sketchbook full of drawings and a heart full of memories. The symposium is always a reminder of why urban sketching matters — not just as an artistic practice, but as a way of building connections, of being truly present in a place.
I'll be there next year too.
