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| Sketching in my backyard. |
The dictionary says that a hobby is “an activity or interest
pursued for pleasure or relaxation.” Although urban sketching certainly
provides both pleasure and relaxation, I don’t think of it as my hobby. I think
of it more as a way of life – something that has become such a normal part of
my everydayness that it shapes how I
view the world.
For most of my life I had both the fear of drawing as well as the desire to draw. In 2011,
inspired by Gabi Campanario’s Seattle Sketcher column, I finally decided
to overcome the fear. His drawings of Seattle – my birthplace and lifelong home
– were of sights that I had seen many times, yet had never truly seen. I wanted to learn to see, and therefore
experience, those locations (and any new ones that I travel to) more completely.
That desire led me to discover Urban Sketchers, a worldwide network of people who had the same desire. Part 8 of the Urban Sketchers Manifesto,
to “show the world, one drawing at a time,” has a flip side: Sketching enables
me to see my own world, one drawing at a time.
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| Sketching the Eiffel Tower. |
It is not an exaggeration to say
that Urban Sketchers has changed my life. I have met and sketched with many
wonderful people around the globe, either at symposiums or during other travel,
because the Urban Sketchers network brought us together. I sketch almost weekly
with my local group, Urban Sketchers Seattle, sharing sketches, art supplies and friendship. Even when I
stay home and enjoy sketches online, I am still a part of that rich network,
learning with every sketch about other people’s lives.
In 2015, my husband Greg and I went to France for the first
time, and I sketched the Eiffel Tower.
Sketching one of the world’s most famous icons felt like a dream come true –
the ultimate in urban sketching. But although I can’t resist sketching
world-famous icons whenever I’m fortunate enough to see them, for me, urban
sketching is much more than that.
Urban sketching is a tree with its middle chopped away to accommodate Seattle’s ubiquitous power
lines. It’s about a couple of women chatting over coffee, or about workers roofing the house next door. It’s about an excavator filling a hole where a cherry tree once stood. Or the Tibetan monastery I drive by frequently
that I couldn’t resist because it’s bright orange. Urban sketching is a string band performing at a local farmers’market – or perhaps in Villefranche-sur-Mer.
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| Sketching in Villefranche-sur-Mer, France. (All photos by Greg Mullin) |
Celebrating the mundane as well as the famous is what urban
sketching is all about. My sketches are not necessarily about “special”
moments; they are moments made special because I sketched them.
I was interviewed in July 2020 about urban sketching on the Erasable Podcast.
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I was interviewed in July 2020 about urban sketching on the Erasable Podcast.
In June 2021, I was interviewed about urban sketching on the Art Supply Posse Podcast.