Sketchcrawl is 5! (Plus 25th Worldwide Sketchcrawl tomorrow)

On November 21st 2004, the very first global sketching marathon was held.

Tomorrow, 21st November it is

• the 5th anniversary of the very first Sketchcrawl AND
  
• the date of the 25th Worldwide Sketchcrawl.

Here's a thread about 5 YEARS of SKETCHCRAWLING around the WORLD.

What is a sketchcrawl?

This is what Founder Enrico Casarosa has to say about it back in February 2006.

The basic idea: to record nonstop everything I could around me with my pencil and watercolors. A drawn journal filled with details ranging from the all the coffee I drank to the different buses I took. After a whole day of drawing and walking around the city the name seemed quite fitting: "SketchCrawl" - a drawing marathon. The crawl was more tiring than I imagined but also more fun and exciting than I had thought. Giving yourself this kind of mandate for a full day changes the way you look around you. It makes you stop and see things just a tad longer, just a bit deeper … needless to say I loved it.

I soon figured out it was much more interesting to do the marathon with a group of artists instead of all by myself! And so SketchCrawl turned communal. After a whole day of drawing it proved to be amazingly interesting and inspiring to share and compare other people's drawings and thoughts. Different takes on our surroundings, different details, different sensibilities.

The next step was making the SketchCrawl a World Wide event: having people from different corners of the world join in a day of sketching and journaling and then, thanks to the Internet, having everyone share the results on an online forum.

So here it is, we have a website now, a few Crawls behind me, some by myself some with friends and artists from around the world … and hopefully plenty SketchCrawls ahead of us.
Enrico Casarosa - About Sketchcrawl February 2006

There are some who would say it's also another form of Sketchercise!

Where are the Sketchcrawls taking place around the world?

This is a map of all the places participating in the 24th Sketchcrawl in September 2009

In the Sketchcrawl Forum plans are being made and this is a list of the current places planning a sketchcrawl. It's not too late to start planning for another venue.

I've always really fancied travelling with my sketchbook to a different city to do a sketchcrawl! When I look down the list of places participating I want to start looking up planes and trains!

USA

• Airports - USA - for people travelling to Thanksgiving celebrations in the USA!
  
• Atlanta, GA- USA
• Boulder, CO - USA
• Corvallis/Albany Oregon area
• Denver, Colorado
• Fort Worth, TX
• Houston, Texas
• Lansing Michigan USA
• Moscow : Idaho : USA
• Mystic, CT
• New Orleans [USA]
• New York City USA - this tends to get a lot of people
  
• Orange County, CA
• San Francisco, CA - this is always a BIG ONE!
  
• Seattle, Washington USA
• Sonoma County
• Tri-Cities, WA
• Waikiki, Hawaii
• Washington, DC: USA

Europe

• Barcelona, Spain
• Berlin, Germany
• Brussels, Belgium
• Budapest, Hungary
• FIRENZE (Italy)
• HAMBURG :: Germany
• LATINA [Italy]
• London, UK
• Malaga, Spain
• MANTOVA - Italy
  
• Milano - Italy
• Oxford UK
• Périgueux, France
• ROME, Italy
• Salzburg/ AUSTRIA
• Sigtuna, Sweden
• Viborg Denmark
• Vienna, Austria

South America

• Bogota, Colombia
• Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Brazil
• Santos, Brazil
  
• São Sebastião , SP Brasil
• Salt Lake City, UT, USA

Asia

• Bangkok, THAILAND
• Ha Noi,Viet Nam
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• TOKYO/Japan

Australasia

• Alice Springs :: Australia
• Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
• Sydney - Australia

If you're out there and sketching don't forget to take a photograph of your group and to post it to the forum.

Here in London I can't help thinking that I'm going to be very deterred by the weather. The forecast is for heavy rain and wind for the next couple of days!!! Looks like the plans are to sketch in and around the National Gallery.

However wouldn't it be great if as many people as possible go sketching tomorrow?

All because one chap went on a pub crawl and then wondered what it would be like if he went on a crawl with a sketchbook instead!

Links:

• Sketchcrawl website
• Sketchcrawl Forum for 25th Sketchcrawl
• Sketchawhat? - for those of you who have not done one before
• Enrico Casarosa's Blog