Urban Sketching - What is It?
Urban Sketching is really nothing new. It is, basically, sketching urban environments on-location. That is, when you are actually there sketching what you see, on-location. Also called “en plein air” drawing in French, something the Impressionists (Claude Monet and Pierre-August Renoir) espoused in the late 1800s. But, as a ‘movement,’ it became a ‘thing” in 2007 when Seattle resident, Gabriel Campanario, started posting sketches he had done “on-location” on-line and encouraged others to join in. Thus, in 2009, was http://www.urbansketchers.org/ born. It goes by the abbreviation “USk.”
The Urban Sketchers “manifesto” (hate the name but love the mandate) sets out that sketches must be done on-location, indoors or out and a list of other tenets. That is, the ‘true’ urban sketcher doesn’t draw from a reference photo and completes a drawing - from pencil and pen sketch through to colored-in painting - while still on-location. Tough standards for some but thousands of sketchers around the world abide by the manifesto rules. There are Urban Sketcher chapter groups all over the world as well. Here in Virginia there are chapters in Charlottesville and Fredericksburg and an unofficial (at least it’s not listed on the USk web site) chapter in Richmond.
Though I’m a fan of the concept and hope, in fact, to start an urban sketching group in my hometown of Lynchburg. It may not past muster as an “official” chapter, however, as I do subscribe to doing drawings from photos as well as on-location. Of course, realizing how impactful the experience of sketching and painting what you see while on-location, I encourage that and try with my own work to do just that. However, I recognize that sometimes because of time, weather or other conditions one can only sketch a scene after the fact from a photograph. Even when sketching on-location I immediately take photographs of the scene in case I’m unable to finish on-location. On other occasions if I see a scene I think would make an interesting sketch but I can’t do it then, I’ll take photographs to use as reference later at home.
