Covid Guidelines for Artists meeting in Groups

Drawing Attention, the official monthly zine of the Urban Sketchers organization publicises sketching meet-ups each month. 

This month it published some very sensible guidelines for those artists and sketchers beginning to meet up again. You can find Drawing Attention (August 2020) on Issuu and the guidelines are on pages 4 and 5.

Well done to Urban Sketchers for doing a good turn and providing a very useful checklist of everything that needs thinking about and attending to! 

Plus a lot of it is relevant to other painting groups aiming to meet up in future e.g. plein air painters.

I've clipped the relevant guidance as it struck me that the more this very sound guidance can be shared, the safer people will be. 

ONE THING: It did strike me that another couple of points:

• caution might be suggested to those aged over 70 or those who have been shielding or have an underlying condition which places them at higher risk - maybe meeting up in smaller groups to start with
• I personally would want to know who harboured young people at home who ignore safety precautions or are too young to adhere to them properly - so I can stay well away from them.

I did also wonder what the scope was for Zoom Sketching Groups!

BOTTOM LINE: As indicated, whoever is running a group and arranging meetings between people from different households should ALWAYS have the health and safety of ALL participants as their #1 priority.

Artists need to exercise good judgement, common sense and integrity