Urban Sketching (lat. “urbanus”) offers a fantastic opportunity to tell stories from your everyday life and to see the world with a new set of eyes. Instead of using a camera to capture scenes of city life, Urban Sketchers use colors, pens and paper. No matter if it’s buildings, streets, cafés or people – Urban Sketching is about capturing moments, how you yourself experience them. In the following article you will get to know where the movement of Urban Sketching originated from, what it is about and what you need for an Urban Sketch.
Where Urban Sketching originated from
People have always been sketching their surroundings, but the term “Urban Sketching” only has gotten popular during the 2000s, when the Journalist and Illustrator Gabriel Campanario from Seattle created the online blog “Urban Sketchers”. He called out to creatives from all over the world to share their sketches and stories under the mantra “See the World, One Drawing at a Time”. This movement encouraged countless drawing enthusiasts to sketch in spirit of the <a href=”https://urbansketchers.org/who-we-are/#manifesto”>Manifesto of the Urban Sketchers.</a>
What is Urban Sketching about?
Urban Sketching is more than just sketching cities – it’s a lively and personal form of encapsulating the essence of the world around you in a drawing. The most important thing about Urban Sketching is that you don’t copy the scenes from a picture or draw them from memory – you must sketch them on-the-spot and witness them yourself. It’s not about copying them perfectly but rather capturing the atmosphere and feeling of a moment from the perspective of the artist and in their personal style. Urban Sketching lives off the immediate impression of your observation. Accordingly, it happens spontaneously and relatively fast – oftentimes in the busy downtown area, on a marketplace or in a café. Every sketch tells its own, individual story.
What do you need for an Urban Sketch?
Generally, small sketchbooks or sketchpads (A5 format) are utilized, considering it’s impractical to always carry around copious amounts of materials with you. The advantage of using smaller canvases is that you can cover the scenes quicker and not get overwhelmed or tired while sketching. Since there are no limitations on which media to use, you are free to choose them however you like. Drawing techniques also differ from person to person. While most Urban Sketchers prefer to use pencil, ink and watercolors for their work, some like to experiment with mixed media or acrylic- and oil paint or create context through words they write alongside their sketches.
If you’re interested in the topic of sketching and want to learn more about it, you’re welcome to read these articles from us:
Drawing Techniques With a Pencil
How to Start Pencil Drawings: 5 Practical Tips
Learning to Shade – Visualising Volume, Depth and Space
Sources:
https://urbansketchers.org/who-we-are/#manifesto
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Sketchers
http://zeichnen-lernen.markus-agerer.de/zeichnen-lernen2/urban-sketching-lernen.php
Celina Kari