Many artists, particularly urban sketchers, are quite adept at holding their sketchbooks in their hands while sitting or standing and drawing as well as painting. I’m not one of them. I don’t do well either standing, holding a plate and eating.

Once I learn something and it becomes part of me, my teaching gene kicks in. I love to share things I know with others and I do that through teaching, through offering tutorials, workshops, or classes.

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 (Cloude Monet and Pierre-August Renoir) espoused in the late 1800s.

I started my artistic journey in January only wanting to learn how to draw reasonably good portraits with only pencils. I kind of accomplished that by May or June and then became really interested in the “urban sketching” phenomenon (more about that in future post) and sketching in general.

I take photos of my sketches and paintings. Sometimes I take several as I’m doing a sketch and/or drawing to document the progression or development of a piece. For paintings for which I want to have prints made for sharing or possible sale, I scan the paintings on my Canon 4400 flatbed scanner. But mostly I simply snap photos with my iPhone because I just want to share a completed sketch or painting on Facebook or Instagram.