It’s about an excavator filling a hole where a cherry tree once stood. It’s about a couple of women chatting over coffee, or about workers roofing the house next door. Urban sketching is a tree with its middle chopped away to accommodate Seattle’s ubiquitous power lines. 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. Sketching one of the world’s most famous icons felt like a dream come true – the ultimate in urban sketching. In May, my husband Greg and I went to France for the first time, and I sketched the Eiffel Tower. 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. I sketch almost weekly with my local group, sharing sketches, art supplies and friendship. I have met and sketched with many wonderful people around the globe, either at symposiums or during other travel, because the USk network brought us together.
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In the last four years, it is not an exaggeration to say that Urban Sketchers has changed my life. 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.
![stopmotion movie maker stopmotion movie maker](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RtxgqrntIvI/maxresdefault.jpg)
I wanted to learn to see, and therefore experience, those locations (and any new ones that I travel to) more completely. His drawings of Seattle – my birthplace and lifelong home – were of sights that I had seen many times, yet had never truly seen. In 2011, inspired by Gabi Campanario’s Seattle Sketcher column, I finally decided to overcome the fear. 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.įor most of my life I had both the fear of drawing as well as the desire to draw. "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.