RIGHT
View over the Asakusa
neighbourhood from
Sky Tree, Tokyo, by
individual artist
Ken Yeh (Taiwan)
Mike pen and ink pen, 2018LEFT
Front cover of Sketches
Under The Umbrella,
featuring sketches
of the 2014 Umbrella
Movement in Hong
Kong by members of
PHOTO © ALVIN WONG USk Hong KongEn Plein Air
Intrepid arits who put aside their
social media apps... to draw
ART OF LIFETe x t JocelynLau&JamesLimPlein-airdrawing is an inspiring sight: a group
of people perched on low stools orsiting
cross-legged on the ground, pen or brush in
hand, carefully sketching the details of a scene
in front of them into an open sketchbook.
Occasionally, one leans over to a fellow artist
to discuss a detail in the drawing, to borrow an
art material or simply to chat. Others appear
absorbed in thought, as if contemplating
the best way of composing their drawing or
capturing a detail.
In the current age of Instagram uploads,
immediate mobile phone photos and quick
gratiication, the art of live drawing – one
thatoten requires the person to endure the
elements – seems to belong more reasonably
to a time of the past. Indeed,plein-air(“open
air”) drawing goes back for centuries, and it
was turned into an art form by the French
Impressionists in the 19th century.
Yet today, plein-air drawing is popular
and thriving throughout urban societies
in the world, fuelled by the passion of
members of informal art interest groups
as well as of individual artists.
Showing Asia
One well-known on-location phenomenon
is the Urban Sketchers (USk). he global
nonproit organisation, which celebrated their
10th anniversary in November 2 01 7, was begun
in Seatle, USA, by Gabriel Campanario, a
staf artist at he Seatle Times. heir moto
is “show the world, one drawing at a time”,
and their manifesto is “draw places that can
be put on a map, and everything that happens
in those places”. Nearly 200 other groups, or
“chapters”, have since started throughout the
world, with each chapter run autonomously
by enthusiastic local volunteers.
In Asia, nearly 60 USk communities have
been formed, with Singapore, Penang and
Kuching (Malaysia), Hong Kong (China)
and hailand having some of the most active
urban sketching groups in the region.
he commitee currently responsible
for managing the registration of new Asian
chapters includes the co-founder of USk Hong
Kong Alvin Wong. An architect in his 40s,
Wong says, “he main diference between
ourselves and other art interest groups is
our ‘on-location’ rule: the sketch must be
completed on-site. We can tell whether are | asian artists