Urban Sketchers officially starts tomorrow

Urban Sketchers Blog

Urban Sketchers is a new team blog which officially 'opens for business' tomorrow. However it's actually been up and running since 7th October in order to introduce all the correspondents - of which I'm one. See Meet the correspondents: LONDON > Katherine Tyrrell (you even get to see a different photo of me!)

Urban Sketchers is a community of artists around the world who draw the people and places of the cities where they live and travel to.

Urban Sketchers (the blog) has grown out of the Flickr Urban Sketchers group which was started in November of 2007 by Seattle journalist and illustrator Gabi Campanario.

Below you can find the list of the 45 correspondents - and their blogs - located in towns and cities all over the world. The list is alphabetical by first name. Why don't you see if you recognise any names?

What I found particularly interesting, when I read through all the introductions, were the very many and varied reasons why people sketch - and how they go about it.

Reading through these introductions is a very fast introduction to why people sketch in cities!

• ALESSANDRO ANDREUCCETTI — Florence, Italy. Alessandro Andreuccetti
• ÁLVARO CARNICERO — Córdoba, Spain. Croquis
• AMANDA KAVANAGH — New York. craftmonkeys
• EA EJERSBO — Århus, Denmark. Ea's Artlog
• EDUARDO SALAVISA — Lisbon. Desenhador do quotidiano
• ELIZABETH PERRY — Pittsburgh. woolgathering
• EKATERINA KHOZATSKAYA — St. Petersbourg. Bogema
• ENRIQUE FLORES — Madrid. cuatro cosas
• FLORIAN AFFLERBACH — Stuttgart. Flaf
• FRIDA FRIDA — Oslo. Frida Frida
• GABI CAMPANARIO — Seattle. Seattle Sketcher
• GREG BETZA — New York. Greg Betza
• JOAN CENTELLAS — Monistrol de Montserrat, Barcelona. Joan Centellas
• JOÃO CATARINO — Lisbon. desenhos do dia
• JULIEN FASSEL — Barcelona. les calepins de lapin
• JASON DAS — New York. Gas Water Nothing
• JOÃO PINHEIRO — Sao Paulo. joão pinheiro - diário gráfico
• JOSÉ LOURO — Lisbon. a janela de Alberti
• KATHERINE TYRRELL — London. Travels with a sketchbook in...
• LAURA GENZ — Paris. Laura Genz
• LAURA FRANKSTONE — Chapel Hill, NC. Laurelines
• LOK JANSEN — Tokyo. Lok Jansen
• MARINA GRECHANIK — Tel-Aviv. marin71
• MARTHA McEVOY — San Francisco. Trumpetvine Travels
• MATTHEW CENCICH — Victoria, Canada. Matthew Cencich
• MATT FORSYTHE — Montreal. coming up for air
• MIGUEL HERRANZ — Bologna. free[k]hand
• NINA JOHANSSON — Stockholm. Nina Johansson
• NUNO BRANCO — Madrid. Caderno de viagens
• OLHA PRYYMAK — London. Olechko
• PEDRO CABRAL — Lisbon. Bonecos de bolso
• PETE SCULLY — Davis, Calif. postcards of the hanging
• ROB CAREY — Kandern, Germany. kunst-by-rob
• RICHARD CAMARA — Madrid. Richard Câmara
• SHARON FROST — New York. Day Books
• SAMANTHA ZAZA — San Francisco. Szaza
• SIMONETTA CAPECCHI — Naples. in viaggio col taccuino
• STEPHEN GARDNER — New York. Sketch of the day
• STUART KERR — Edinburgh. Stupot
• TIN SALAMUNIC — Richmond, Va. Salamunic Illustration
• TOMMY KANE — New York. Tommy Kane
• VERONICA LAWLOR — New York. Veronica Lawlor
• WIL FREEBORN — Glasgow. Ghostschool
• WALT TAYLOR — Norfolk, VA. crackskullbob
• ZHENIA VASILIEV — Moscow. Zhenia Vasiliev

Urban Sketchers looks like it's going to be a very active blog so why don't you subscribe by email or in your feedreader - or add it to the blogs that you follow.

This is what Gabi Campanario (Seattle Sketcher) has to say about why he sketches

This is a city of both tough fishermen and coffee snobs, Boeing machinists and Microsoft programmers. Its unique geographic setting with water and mountains east and west creates an interesting backdrop to the urban landscape. I try to capture all of that in my sketchbooks, drawing every day on the bus, during lunch breaks or on weekend outings to the beautiful places of the Pacific Northwest. Labeling things and writing observations around the drawings is the type of journalism that suits me."
Gabi Campanario

You too can join the Urban Sketchers Flickr group so long as you observe the guidelines for what can be posted.

This is a group for all sketchers out there who love to draw the cities they live in or visit, from the window of their homes, from a cafe, at a park, standing by a street corner... always on location, not from photos or memory.

Here are some guidelines:

1. You did the drawing on location, not from photos or memory. Adding color or a few details later is fine. On site doesn't necessarily mean outdoors, you can draw from a coffee shop, pub or grocery store or any other city building. Just make sure the subject is urban. Computer generated images are not acceptable.

2. The subject of the drawing has to be primarily urban. The word urban comes from the latin urbs, which means city. So drawings here must have city elements: streets, buildings, houses, traffic, city parks, shops, stores, churches... you get the idea.

3. Drawings of people are okay as long as they are in an urban setting: walking on a street, at a coffee shop, on the bus, subway or other way of public transportation.

4. You should state in what city you did the drawing. Even better, place the drawing on the map. That would be helpful for other sketchers who may want to draw from the same location when they're in your city.

Hope this helps, happy sketching!

gabi campanario
Seattle Sketcher
Urban Sketchers

My main link with Urban Sketchers is going to be through my blog posts on Travels with a Sketchbook in....... However I will also be highlighting posts on Urban Sketchers from time to time in 'who's made a mark this week'.

I'm now off to start my map of where I've done my sketches in the past and to explain in a post on TwaS why I'm in profile in the photo!