Urban Sketching meet up at Loulé Mercado and Saturday Market

Outside of Loule Market Algarve Portugal

Feature Image: Exterior of Loulé Market

Last year I sketched at Tavira Market for an exhibition of the market and it’s people later in the year, so I was excited to hear about another market event in Loulé last weekend. Hosted by Urban Sketchers Algarve. There were about 20 sketchers in attendance to capture the market’s 115th year anniversary, and I was excited to finally meet one of my favourite urban sketching instructors visiting from Lisbon, Pedro Loureiro (#fan-girl moment!).

Getting to Loulé

It’s a bit of a commitment getting to Loulé without a car. The journey involves a train to Faro, followed by a bus to Loulé. Although this location has been on my wish-list for months now, it took this urban sketching event to entice me to make the two hour journey!

What I sketched at Loulé: Market Stalls

I got there early and started sketching some of the stall holders from the Saturday Market, located outside the Loulé Mercado building.

Urban Sketch of People at Loule Saturday Market stalls

What I sketched at Loulé: My Fellow Urban Sketcher

Then I ventured inside to search for the urban sketching event organiser, João. I caught up with him at a fish counter and did a sneaky sketch without disturbing him.

(I didn’t want to draw the complex market ceiling, but the sketch looked off balance, so I added my practice of conjugating the Portuguese present tense verb Estar, during the train journey home!)

What I sketched at Loulé: Market Restaurant

I wanted to sketch the interior of this iconic art deco market building, but to be honest I found all the lines and angles overwhelming…

.. so I settled on sketching one of the market’s restaurants. Even though this view had lots of small details, I found it easy to navigate around the glasses, bottles and other items on the counter without being overwhelmed.

Urban Sketch of Restaurant at Loule Market

What really drew me to this restaurant were the four handmade macrame light fixtures. In hindsight, wish I’d made more of a feature, and sketched them oversized. Whether I’m sketching people or buildings, there’s always an element that catches my eye and inspires me to sketch.

Jay urban sketching a restaurant at Loule Market — Me urban sketching – *photo curtesy of the event organiser*

Using an Urban Sketching Element to create a theme

I usually take one or two cooler grey Tombow brush pens with me to urban sketch. This way it’s easy to add shadows and darker areas to create depth in the sketches. But for Loulé, I took a beige/warmer grey Tombow pen with me (simply because my favourite pale grey Tombow it drying up).

Maybe because it’s a totally different tone than I’m used to, but this change really helped to create a distinctive cohesion across my day’s sketches.

I had to cut my day short as I lost my phone, but luckily I was able to recover it the following week (Thank God for “track my phone”). I learnt a valuable lesson, it’s easy to get distracted when urban sketching, so make sure you don’t play fast and loose with the location of your phone.