July 2010 was the start of my long service trip of 11 weeks. I was able to time it with the first USK Symposium in Portland and visiting friends in Seattle. The night before we headed down to Portland Gabi organised a dinner for the USKers in town.

This was the first time I had met anyone from the online world. Back then Urban Sketchers was only beginning and was mainly just the blog where the correspondents posted to.

To meet these correspondents was so mind blowing. I felt I had already met the person behind the sketchers through following their sketchers online but it was so much better to meet the person behind the work. I felt so honoured to be hanging out with these amazing sketchers!

Was a crazy evening of talk talk talk… and then silence as we were all sketching.

The rest were all sketching each other so I sketched the food – they all paused to watch me sketch and eat at the same time. I remember Isobel saying to me “we all have our strengths and weaknesses – online we only see the strengths” This helped me a lot –  as I did feel a bit inadequate not having the confidence to sketch the others.

Gabi’s sketch from the dinner… VERY exciting to be sketched by Gabi, and Lapin and Isobel, and Tia AND Gerard!

Of all the incredible USK experiences I have had over the years – as the first, this event is still at the top. It was the day when USK became real to me.