Right after lunch each day there was a panel discussion where instructors from  the Santo Domingo Urban Sketching Symposium would get up in front of the room full of artists and talk about their experiences sketching that day. I had this sketch fairly well layed out when Gabi approached me and asked me to be on the panel. Sigh, I would have to finish the sketch the next day. I sat center stage, sandwiched between the amazing talents of Veronica Lawlor and Nina Johansson. Gabi Campanario, who founded Urban Sketchers, had heard about my run in with the guards at Puerta del Conde and he wanted me to relate the incident. My main point was that it was important to always finish the sketch, come hell or high water. This was the first time that the person who insisted I stop sketching was carrying a gun.

It was incredibly rewarding to hear students from my first workshops relate what resonated with them.  I thought that instructing and standing in front of a room full of piers might be stressful, but the opposite was true, I felt at ease and at home among artists who shared my desire to document and record events by sketching. The next day, I sketched Marc Holmes, Lynne Chapman and Liz Steel into my unfinished sketch from the day before. Lynne, smiled broadly, radiating good humor and Liz had filled an entire sketchbook already. I had taken Marc’s class and it made me realize that it helps to be thrown outside the usual sketching comfort zone when being asked to think about sketching in a different light.