Isabel Carmona Andreu - Urban Sketching: An Artists Guide

URBAN SKETCHING

URBAN SKETCHING

An artists guide

ISABEL CARMONA ANDREU

First published in 2020 by
The Crowood Press Ltd
Ramsbury, Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2020

Isabel Carmona Andreu 2020

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 752 1

Dedication
To Dean Thanks for waiting while I sketch!
Thank you.

All images Isabel Carmona Andreu except when specified otherwise.

INTRODUCTION

U rban sketching is a modern term, coined in around 2007, to describe a type of drawing on location that tells a story about peoples surroundings, recording what the sketcher sees, interpreting it and sharing it with others, personally or online. Drawing on location and sketching or painting en plein air became popular in the nineteenth century with Impressionism, as artists captured the world around them, travelling or at home. The novelty of the current movement is the openness and sharing of the experience; talking about it improves communication and increases the understanding of the process as well as the meaning of the drawings. During its inception in 2007 sketchers used the means available to them, an incipient Flickr, to share images and comments. This evolved into a blog ( urbansketchers.org ) where stories could be told and text added to the drawings, and then various other sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google) joined Flickr as online platforms where images could be posted. There are millions of pictures relating to urban sketching, stories told far and close to home, inspiring us to put pen to paper and tell our own daily stories through drawing.

Sketching personality. Each urban sketch is a personal world, a witness to a scene, drawn in a particular way depending on the feeling of the day and the story to tell. This meeting of the Green Party representatives in a local caf was an exciting moment for them as their first local election was approaching. The sketch itself is unusual, using curvilinear perspective to depict on paper all that is happening in front of the viewer, drawn in colour pencil.

Whilst the communication side of urban sketching is global and far reaching, the context remains close to home. It is their daily lives and worries that urban sketchers communicate, what they do, what they witness, who they meet and the actions around them; they draw anything that catches their interest, to share it with others.

Apart from techniques and methods of drawing, it is the sketchers personalities that are put forward. They all have something to say in their own way and this book will help readers to bring out and sketch the stories of their daily lives. At the beginning new sketchers will notice the small things around them and slowly expand their views to notice more, to see and keep looking at what they draw, recording what they witness with an open mind and also learn to share those views with other sketchers locally and globally. The charm of urban sketching is that it opens doors by connecting sketchers to others that share the same journey, both at home and abroad. Urban sketches show diverse ways of life; some similar, some different to the sketchers own familiar environment. People who sketch are usually open and eager to engage in conversation; they are supportive of each other and welcome interaction. There are a multitude of local groups throughout the globe that meet regularly, normally at no cost, to sketch together and share the pleasure of drawing what they see.

After an overview of the materials that are normally used in urban sketching, the book is organized around exercises and projects/demos that will help develop the habit of sketching. The book will start showing the use of simple tools and equipment and then move on to more complex techniques. Along the way various technical points such as drawing with lines, mark making, composition, working with tone or colour theory are covered.