What Happens After a Sketching Retreat (And How to Keep the Momentum Going)
- Blog
- June 3, 2026
- 32 mins
A few days after a sketching retreat, the bags are unpacked and the trip sketchbook is sitting on the side, full of pages you are proud of. Then ordinary life closes back over the top, and a familiar question creeps in: how do I keep this going on my own?
The answer is much smaller than the question feels. You do not have to recreate the whole week. You need one thing from it, used well, before it fades.
The week after is where it sticks
A week after our first Urban Sketch Course cruise ended, one of our members, John H was standing on Doran Beach at Bodega Bay with his sketchbook open. Not Palma. Not Malta. An hour from his own front door.
He could have done what most of us do. Come home, propped the holiday sketches on a shelf, and let the trip settle into a warm memory. Instead he found a local beach and got straight back to work. Here is how he described it:
Back in California after an amazing Urban Sketch Cruise with Ian. Plein air today at Doran Beach, Bodega Bay. Using the Ian teachings, I upped my game.
- Painted what the scene felt like with colours beyond the realistic ones.
- Used a limited four colour palette and white.
- Bravely added more black tombow.
- Took it slow.
Look at that list again. It is not the whole cruise. It is four ideas, applied to a completely different scene. That is the entire skill of keeping a retreat alive: taking the moves you learned and using them somewhere new, the week after, before they fade.
A retreat teaches you the moves. The fortnight that follows is where they either become part of how you sketch, or slowly slip away.
Pick one thing, not the whole retreat
When we asked our members for their single biggest takeaway from a retreat with Ian, something telling happened. Nobody listed twenty lessons. They each had one or two that changed how they sketch.
Vicki B put hers in a tidy list:
- To slow down when adding colour and do it with purpose.
- Increased confidence sketching outside.
- How to use tone to give the sketches depth.
- Confidence in using tombow for the initial sketch and not being afraid to start.
- Don’t use dozens of lines.
Others landed on just one. For Cheryl Z it was not a technique at all but a kind of permission, the realisation that “I get to control the scene. I can leave things out, move things. The colour palette doesn’t have to be what really exists.” For Suzanne M it was the lesson almost every sketcher learns the hard way: you need “more water than you would ever think,” and “you are probably done before you think you are.”
Different people, different lessons, same shape. One idea each. If you came home with a single thing that clicked, you did not get less out of the week than the person with the longer list. You got exactly what you needed. The job now is to use it.
Edit the scene, then edit your ambitions
That instinct, to take less rather than more, shows up in the most common retreat experience of all: the overwhelm. The moment you face a huge, beautiful scene and have no idea where to begin. Lerie L felt it in the Bavarian Alps, and her way out is worth slowing down on.
My biggest takeaway? Sketching with Ian in the Bavarian Alps. There are mountains, hills, a lake and more trees and shrubs that you could possibly sketch. An unbelievable beautiful scene, but completely overwhelming. That day I learnt that a sketch needs a foreground, a middle ground and a background. Edit the scene. Carefully choose the information and the details that you think need to go in.
Editing the scene. It is one of Ian’s core lessons, and it turns out to be just as useful for your sketching life as it is for a single page. You cannot draw every tree on the mountain, and you cannot bring every lesson from the retreat home in working order. So you choose. You decide which one idea belongs in the foreground of your practice this month, and you let the rest sit in the background until you are ready for them.
Chase the ones that got away
The lessons are only half of what you carry home, though. A retreat also hands you subjects. The view you walked past, the corner the group debated, the spot Ian pointed at and said “I would love to paint that, but there is not time.” Those stay with you, and chasing them once you are home is one of the surest ways to keep the week alive.
Vicky H did exactly that after the Bath retreat. Gay Street was a scene Ian had considered sketching but never got to, one of the ones that got away. So when she got home, she painted it herself, her own version of The Circle, lamppost, railings, those punishing rows of window panes and all.
Notice she did not pick an easy win. She took on the scene Ian had filed under “too much,” found the colours and the windows hard, and did it anyway, then shared it and asked how to push it further. That is momentum in its truest form. Not waiting to be taught, but going after the thing that caught your eye and learning from the attempt.
So keep a small list. Take the photos. The view you did not have time for. The subject someone else raved about. The one that got away. They are your sketching to-do list for the weeks after a retreat, and every one you tackle keeps it going.
Compare yourself to yourself
On the cruise, Ian did something he always does. He refused to put his own work in the evening evaluation line-up, where the whole group laid their sketches out on the studio floor. He explained why on the first night:
“The workshop is not about me. It’s about you. My work is there to help you step by step. But when the workshop’s over, my work disappears, and it’s all about your learning experience.”
Then he added the line we keep coming back to: “It’s not comparing yourself to me. It’s comparing yourself to yourself.”
That framing is the heart of the week after a retreat. You are not trying to paint like Ian, and you are not trying to recreate the magic of the trip. You are taking the one idea that landed and watching what it does to your everyday sketching: the beach down the road, the cafe on the corner, the view out of the kitchen window. The only fair comparison is the sketch you would have made before the retreat versus the one you make now.
Your retreat sketches are not finished business
The pages you brought home are not sealed the moment you leave. They are still yours to work on, and going back to them with calmer eyes, away from the wind and the time pressure and the crowd at the railing, is part of the work, not an admission that you got it wrong on the day.
Bruce M. came back from the Maldon workshops and did just that, redoing two pieces he was not happy with: the Bushells building and a tractor.
A reluctant pre-sketcher until then, he found the habit had won him over, saying the pre-sketches “proved just how valuable they are for working out sizing your sketch to a page, what to include and what to leave out.” He did not throw the originals away or decide he had failed. He simply reworked the two that were not quite right. Refining a page at the kitchen table is how plenty of beautiful sketches actually get made.
So take the trip sketchbook off the shelf. Sit with the pages. Notice what you would do differently now, and on the ones that are close, finish the job.
How to make a retreat last
So how do you hold onto all of it? Five small steps.
1. Choose one takeaway.
Don’t try to bring the whole retreat home. Pick the single idea that clicked hardest and make it your focus. More water on the brush. A four colour palette. Taking it slow. Leaving white paper for the light. Write it on the first page of your sketchbook so it is the thing you see every time you open it.
2. Use it somewhere ordinary this week.
Don’t wait for another grand location, because the grand location is exactly the thing you do not have at home. The corner shop, the garden, the view from a cafe window, the bus stop on the school run. The more ordinary the subject the better, because you are proving the lesson works on everyday scenes, not only on a cathedral in the sun.
3. Refine one trip sketch.
Take a page from the retreat sketchbook back to the table and finish it with the calmer eyes you have now. Add the tone you ran out of time for, leave the white paper you wish you had left, or simply tidy an edge. Studio time counts, and going back teaches you to see your own work the way Ian sees it when he talks through a sketch in the evening.
4. Make it small and repeatable.
Aim for one small thing two or three times a week, not a finished piece every day. Twenty minutes. One element. One colour rule. A bollard, a doorway, a single tree. Small and frequent beats big and rare every time, because it keeps the pen familiar in your hand and the lesson fresh in your eye.
5. Tell someone.
Share the result somewhere, finished or not, and say what you were practising. “Working on more water this week” turns a private intention into something you are gently accountable for. Our Plus community is built for exactly that, but a friend, a partner, or a single honest post does the same job. Accountability is the difference between a lovely intention and a habit.
Final Thoughts
A sketching retreat is a wonderful, concentrated week. But the better sketcher you become because of it is built in the quiet weeks afterwards, one small and specific thing at a time.
That is how a week away turns into a year of better pages.
Ready to learn more?
If you love the idea of intensive training but can’t make it to one of our in-person retreats, Urban Sketch+ is the next best thing. You’ll get monthly training designed by Ian Fennelly, live workshops, personal feedback, and the same sense of friendship and community that makes our retreats so special – all from the comfort of home.
What Happens After a Sketching Retreat (And How to Keep the Momentum Going)
About the Artist
Ian Fennelly focuses on capturing urban spaces and environments by drawing the places where people have been without actually including them.
His process involves layering watercolors, brush pens, and liners to build depth, texture, and detail, allowing them to fully immerse in the scene while adapting to changes in their surroundings.
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