A large eagle(?) sculpture at the Naval History Museum in Venice, a great place for sketching. Four well-lit floors filled with a vast variety of maritime objects; model ships and planes, charts, machine guns, uniforms, 3D maps old old fortresses, engines, full-size gilded barges, human torpedoes… At  €1,55, the best value attraction in Venice!

I spotted another sketcher, the only one I saw during 4 days in Venice, with water-brush and notebook in hand, drawing boats. He was Pascal Koch from Liege, there as tutor to a group of students drawing elsewhere in the museum. We went through the familiar sketcher’s greeting ritual of comparing paper, pen and paint choices, exchanging sketchbooks, swapping blog addresses, and enthusing about the joys of observational drawing. Meeting fellow sketchers abroad makes the world feel smaller and bigger at the same time; more connected and with much more to explore…

Pilot V7 pen with Lexington grey ink, water-brush with dilute Lexington grey, watercolour, and a bit of white wax crayon for the highlights, A5