Tour de France 2026 – Part 1

I arrived in France on 12th July for the 14th Urban Sketching Symposium, stayed for a week, flew back to Ireland, returned to France on 25th July for a week of teaching in Atelier Clos Mirabel, and came home last night, 1st August. That is why I am calling this series Tour de France, even though I only toured Toulouse and Jurançon, which are very close together as France goes.

Sunday 12th July

My first sketch is made in Dublin Airport, where I draw some jolly French people, and then I make my second sketch on the plane.

Toulouse turns out to be very hot indeed. But I have anticipated that. There has been a flurry of anxiety in the various online forums about the heat we’re going to endure during the Symposium in Toulouse this week. I have assured people that they will be fine if they drape a wet scarf over their shoulders and wear a wide-brimmed hat, and in extreme circumstances drape the wet scarf OVER their hat. This is a tip given to me by Clarisa, an Adelaide dweller of Peruvian origin, and it is very effective. Another person in the online forums worries about the inevitable inconvenience of having to find somewhere to pee through constant hydrating. I assure her she won’t pee as there won’t be anything left in that heat. A very angry person posts that no one wants to hear my “pee wisdom” but luckily others find her as cantankerously unreasonable as I do, and come to my defence. Someone tells her that USk is only ever positive and polite. Another says that perhaps others do wish to hear my pee wisdom. I answer her and say that I am just a wise woman, travelling the world sharing pee wisdom, and then I look up the angry lady. It turns out, as it usually does, that she is angry with other people too.

And as for needing to find public conveniences, I turn out to be correct – which, I believe, is a sign of dehydration. Not that wise after all.

I am supposed to be off alcohol (I have recently learned that the œstrogen in HRT + alcohol = massive spike in breast cancer risk) but I have arranged to meet an ex-student for a drink. We have delicious mojitos in the hotel lobby. I am not in the same hotel as my colleagues because I left it too late to book my extra nights, so I am lonely in the evening – I have sensed that the mentals are going to be a problem this week – but I meet my wonderful colleague Uma, and we hang out together for a little while. She is funny and clever and great company, and she makes all the difference. Mentals at bay – for now.

Monday 13th July

My hotel is beside the Japanese Gardens. I think maybe I should walk through the gardens and head to the location of my workshop in Marché Victor Hugo to do a recce and some practice sketching, but when I see the entrance to the Japanese Garden I veer left instead of right and head inside. Almost immediately I bump into a colleague. She’s someone I have always liked and admired and is one of the people i am hoping to get to know better. Her workshop location is the Japanese Gardens and she is very keen to get in some practice, so we find a perfect spot with a perfect view of the red bridge. The instructors are obliged to donate a piece for the auction on the last day, and I think this is a good opportunity to get mine done. The resulting painting is not terrible enough to embarass me but not so perfect that I don’t want to part with it, which is the sweet spot when you are donating something that will be seen in public. The second sketch I do is more beautiful but I know that if I take it home it will just sit in my studio unloved and unenjoyed until it starts to curl up at the edges and eventually has ink spilled on it or is trodden on by Reuben, who likes to sit between me and whatever I am doing. So I earmark that for donation too.

Can you see a little fence in the foreground of the top drawing? That is a bamboo boundary that is there to tell you not to go any further, and not to sit on the grass. My colleague and I don’t think about that – why, I do not know – and we spend the entire day sitting in the shade of a tree, sketching, drawing, painting. She is a beautiful and gracious lady from LA and the day is idyllic.

We are packing to leave at about 5pm when a burly security guard informs us very sternly that we are not allowed to be there and that we must leave. He is in his early fifties perhaps, and is wearing a light blue polo shirt and dark blue combat style trousers tucked into serious-looking boots. His tanned, meaty arms are folded and his brow is furrowed, and he is frowning. He has planted his legs firmly apart on the path and his entire body says Move. Now. But he has not reckoned with the undeniable ladyship of my colleague. “I do apologise,” she says in beautifully-accented, American English. “Would you be so kind as to help me over this fence? I am a little woozy from travelling a long way.” She holds out her hand. He melts, and his innate chivalry takes over. He takes her arm and helps her step over the little fence. He takes her suitcase and hefts it over the fence. I smile to myself, as I love when men help ladies in need. I have been a sketcher for decades and I have experienced this countless times. It always feels very nice.

My colleague and I go on our way and giggle at the thought that he arrived just as we were leaving anyway. We feel very lucky to have sat on that little bit of forbidden lawn all day long.

I hear that there will be many sketchers at the bridge over the Garonne, and after freshening up in my hotel room I make my way towards the group. It’s the night before 14th July, the day the French celebrate the storming of the Bastille.

My mentals aren’t good to start – I have a tendency, long in the past now, to melancholia and wallowing in self-pity – and I am not enjoying the thick crowds making their way to the river. I get through the rows of security guards checking bags for weapons, and that’s about when my mentals start to take a turn for the negative I think, as it’s a reminder of atrocities that I would not picture if I were in a better frame of mind. I don’t see anyone I recognise. Then I bump into a lady I taught last year, sketching on the wall overlooking the walkway lining the river. I liked her at the time, as she was enthusiastic and said I had given her a eureka moment. She gives me a warm hug of greeting and reminds me that she bought my SketchPocket last September.

“But I never use it,” she says.

“Oh dear, why not?” I ask.

“I lose all my pens,” she says.

I ask her if she overfills her bag such that they fall out. No, she says, it’s the pattern on the inside – she can’t see her pens against it. And she says it’s too heavy. I don’t feel remotely bad or guilty as the two reasons are not ones I have heard before. I tell her that no one has said it’s too heavy (in fact, when I was prototyping the bag I tested it on a person with a bad back to make sure he didn’t find it heavy) and neither has anyone said the pattern is causing them to lose their pens. Well, one lady did, but that was on YouTube, just from looking at it. In future I will issue a stern warning and say that some people might find the pattern causes them to lose their pens.

I walk on and the crowds are crazy. I am becoming depressed. I see thousands of people walking like an exodus. Families, reminding me I am far from mine. Young people, reminding me I am no longer young. Friend groups, reminding me I am alone. The older people and divorced and widowed and heartbroken people and alone people do not register in my Bastille Day Eve pity party.

I know there are fireworks coming and I adore fireworks, but I know I have to leave. I pass more security men in the opposite direction. Then I see a little mobile stall selling pomegranate juice. I remember my husband telling me about that when he visited Turkey so I stop to get some. I order a Medium and a wiry oul’ fella with light brown skin starts cutting and squeezing pomegranates. They look so delicious that I ask for it to be made into a Large. He transfers the juice to a plastic cup and continues. He asks me if I would like some ginger juice added – it’s also freshly squeezed – and tells me “ça enlėve” – it uplifts the flavour. I say I would. He hands me the drink and says I have to bring the cup back to him. I ask him if that means I have to stand right there and drink it? He says I do, but that I get to hang out with him, so that will be nice. I find this quite charming. I take a pic for my family and it’s not too hideous so I post it to the Gram.

His friend, also a wiry oul’ fella with very few teeth and light brown skin, sits in a folding beach chair next to the pomegranate cart and asks me where I am from. I tell him Ireland. He beams. “Ireland!” he says enthusiastically. “What a beautiful country!” After a pause, he adds his impressions of Ireland. “Cliffs!” he says. I say yes, cliffs. He thinks for a little bit. “Sheep!” he says. I say yes, sheep. Then the juicing man offers his own bit of knowledge of Ireland. “IRA!” he says, trying to be a smartarse. I make a sound, designed to be non-confrontational and non-political – and ask where they’re from. Algeria. The juicer fiddles with his little umbrella.

“That’s my traffic light system,” he says. I hand him his cup and off I go.

I am persuaded by my son, who has been texting supportively, to head back into the crowds and try to see the fireworks. I fight my way back towards the bridge through the line of security, the brief oasis of human connection at the juice stand now in the rear view mirror, and over. I am so hungry but everywhere is fast-food-ish and has a long queue. But I want to see the fireworks. The sun is starting to set so they can’t be far away. There is a band playing on the far side of the river and it’s not to my taste. Once more I give up and turn around. I lean on the wall overlooking the river and I know that if I stay another fifteen minutes I will see the fireworks which will take place right there. But I cannot bring myself to stay.

I walk slowly back towards my hotel. People are still flowing towards the river, to fun, fireworks and festivity. I stop at a kebab shop – I love Middle Eastern food – and the dueño is really sweet. I take his recommendation and when it comes it’s okay but FAR too big and meaty. I sit outside in the dark under the umbrellas and eat my food…

…and I hear the fireworks go off in the near distance, just on the other side of the umbrella above me, just out of sight. I decide it’s not too late to see them and start to clear up my tray, but as I leave the little eating area and emerge from under the umbrella that final-sounding “pop” goes off and I do not see even one single bit of sparkle.

And the one sketcher I have met is a disgruntled customer.

Tuesday 14th July

The next day I think it is a good idea to check out my workshop location, and I head for the Victor Hugo market. It is hot in there but full of super things to sketch. I can only use five colours, as that’s what I am going to instruct my students to do. Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine, Nickel Azo Yellow, Phthalo Green and Magenta. And I must use my three techniques for sketching people, and channel my inner 19th century novelist: Sherlock Holmes, to decide how long I might have with a subject; Frankenstein, to use body parts from others if my subject moves; any number of ghosts to draw the outlines of transparent people on top of things I have already drawn. These are the techniques I will try to share to help make my students’ market sketching expeditions easier.

I start with a butcher…

and I find a beautiful blonde woman to sketch at a pork sausage stall…

I see the blonde lady lean over the counter for a quiet scroll, but of course she very quickly has to attend to a customer, meaning I lose my subject too fast to capture her. I have foolishly, and unprofessionally, forgotten to channel my inner Sherlock Holmes: I should have thought it through. That’s where the black speech bubble on the right comes in.

I have forgotten to check the opening hours of the market and start to sketch a chhesemonger too late to get much done. I also draw the speech bubble too small and have to take corrective action with a white gel pen. I have left it messy so you can see it, but I can clean it up much better.

I am starting to melt in the heat when a very lovely ex-student of mine passes and we decide to go and have a coffee. We find a lovely little bistro opposite the entrance to the market and sit under a big red awning. Coffee becomes lunch – a delicious plate of green beans with an anchovy on top, and a glass of rosé – and we decide to go to the Sorolla exhibition together.

We take an uber as my friend is awaiting knee surgery and it’s too far and too hot to walk, and the friendly Moroccan taxi driver tells us she misses her family of 11 desperately. She misses her mother. Out of her ten siblings only she and her brother are in France. She says that life in Marrakech is full of camaraderie and joy and life lived in and out of each others’ houses. I feel for her. But she has a smart haircut and a decent job. She coaxes her cab down streets so narrow we fear for her wing mirrors. My student, now friend, is a very gentle and sweet lady from Canada, and we spend a wonderful day together.

Next: the Sorolla exhibition, my mood improves as the hordes descend and the art auction takes place…part 2 is on the way. I hope you will join me then.