My very first sketch crawl

Today was a great day! It was my very first sketchcrawl with USK Belgium. It was going to be an active and interesting day. I left about 1.30h before the meeting was since I was going by bike and it was 26 km away. But faith had other plans for me. After 3 km the left pedal of my bike decided to that life had been good to it and broke of. Bad luck indeed. After a short ride back home ( Thanks dad!) and some internet research I took the train with my small folding bicycle.
And 2 hours late I arrived at Domein de Renesse. a small but nice castle in an even nicer park. I found the Urban Sketchers scattered over the front law sketching the castle in all it's details. I got introduced to all the lovely people and picked a spot to start sketching. Weather was dry but a bit frisky. Shortly after I started the other sketchers went inside cause they where getting cold. (No problem, I was still hot from the bike ride).
I sketched  the main tower.

But about 25 min later I cooled down and I also moved inside. I joined them to paint my sketch with a hot cup of coco. (the castle has a small cafe inside) I gotta to talk a bit but mostly we where sketching.  It was very fun!

After most of the hot drinks where consumed we got the chance to wander around the halls and rooms of the castle. The biggest room was painted in a nice red. One wall was 1 big mirror existing out of more small square mirrors. These where quite old and created a very interesting parallax effect. I painted a smaller door next to it. (the miror wall felt a bit out of my league.)

Closing time was upon us. We packed our stuff and drove to one of the sketchers home and had a simple but very tasty dinner. The soup was amazing! Some more talking and looking through each other sketchbooks. There are some very talented people at USK Belgium!! And even though my style is much more chaotic I got a lot of positive comments. We had some fun until  21.30h. It was time to go back home and luckily 1 person lived near me and gave me a ride home. The end of a very nice and interesting day.

In the end I was pleasantly suprised. I was received with open arms and I felt like I fitted right in. Soo much talented and lovely people. I can't wait to go to the next crawl!!!