Leisure Painter - UK (2019 - Summer)

Tony UnderhillMuseum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge, fibre-tipped pen, 6^12 ⁄x11in.

(17x28cm). This was drawn on a sketchcrawl with the Cambridge Urban Sketchers group. Museums

make great indoor sketching locations, particularly as the exhibits don’t move! Check with the

museum for any restrictions; some insist on pencil or dry materials only.

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most artists welcome the opportunity to

work alongside others, too, both to share

the experience and to learn from one

another. This is where the sharing part of

38 SUMMER 2019 http://www.painters-online.co.uk

worldwide community of urban sketchers.

Meet-ups or sketchcrawls are organised

at regional level, including more than

20 groups (and growing) in the UK and

Ireland. They’re typically held monthly,

for a few hours or all day, either outdoors

or, when the weather necessitates,

indoors, such as in museums. Everyone

is welcome, there’s no charge and

participants can do their own thing or

sketch with others as they choose. There’s

no formal tuition, but urban sketchers

are supportive of each other and there’s

generally someone around to share

problems with or to offer advice. At the

end, there’s a chance (but no pressure)

to share and discuss each other’s work

over coffee or something stronger, and

to pick up new ideas from seeing what

others have done.

Share your work

Whether you join a group or not,

you can share any or all of your

urban sketches online for others to see

using, among other social media sites,

Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and Twitter.

In the same way, you can see work from

other sketchers all over the world. This

is what urban sketchers call ‘showing the

world, one drawing at a time’. Just think,

someone in New York might be looking

at your garden shed and rusty

wheelbarrow at the same time you’re

looking at and learning from someone

else’s sketch of San Francisco, Stockholm,

Singapore or Sydney.

Urban sketching

Shari BlaukopfInishmore, pen and watercolour, 7x10in (18x26cm). Urban sketches don’t have

to be ‘urban’. Shari captured the natural rugged beauty of the Aran Islands while visiting from

Canada to give a workshop in Galway, Ireland and says ‘it brings back memories of cycling round

the island with my sketchbag on my back’. For more of Shari’s sketches see http://www.shariblaukopf.com

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urban sketching comes in, both in terms

of meeting up to sketch together, and

using digital technology and social media

to share sketches online across the

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