7th annual Urban Sketchers Symposium is coming to Manchester!

I am delighted to confirm the 2016 International Urban Sketchers Symposium will be held in Manchester, UK 27th-30th July 2016. The symposium is an annual educational and networking event organised by Urban Sketchers, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to fostering the practice of on-location drawing. Sketchers of all levels, experience, and backgrounds are welcome. Join our Facebook group to discuss USk Manchester 2016. Any advice you need about travel arrangements, hotels etc - just ask in the group or contact me directly as I am the local organiser and was responsible for the successful bid to host the event in Manchester https://www.facebook.com/groups/1633806703541999/ I hope we get to welcome you to our fabulous city next July!

Hong Kong sketches

Archisketcher has been published

I'm delighted to confirm that my book Archisketcher has now been published in the US by North Light Books. It is available to preorder on Amazon and is published in the UK by Apple Books on September 3rd - although some people seem to have already received their copies! Parka Blogs (Teoh Yi Chie) has written a really good review of it here and I'm very grateful to him for reviewing it so positively http://www.parkablogs.com/content/book-review-archisketcher-drawing-buildings-cities-and-landscapes

Festive Greetings

It's been a mad and hectic few months, what with it being the busiest academic term of the year and also I've been working on my book on architectural sketching which is due to be published in summer or fall 2015; you can tell it's being published first in the USA! The publisher is North Light Books in the USA and RotoVision, part of Quarto Books in the UK. I've seen the first draft and it's very exciting for me as it's the first book I've authored. And equally as importantly, I have some fabulous contributors from the world-wide urban sketching community! I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say at the moment but I will post a more detailed update when I know I'm allowed to. I'm genuinely delighted at the opportunity to author this book and I hope it will be a valuable contribution to the increasing number of books about urban (and architectural) sketching.

In the meantime I'd like to wish anyone reading this post warmest wishes for the festive season and very best wishes for 2015!

Christmas Market, Albert Square, Manchester 2014

Post on Urban Sketchers blog about my recent trip to Venice

http://www.urbansketchers.org/2014/11/urban-sketching-in-venice_22.html

'Drawing the City' at Tate Liverpool

Sorry its been so long since my last post...I'm not sure where the time goes! Here is the link to my Tate Liverpool summer school 'Drawing the City' July 22-24th. It's actually fully booked but the Urban Sketchers Manchester Liverpool Tate SketchCrawl is on Saturday 12th July and this coincides with the 44th world-wide SketchCrawl. All welcome, no experience necessary, join us for all or part of the day - or please get in touch with me if you'd like more information.

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/courses-and-workshops/drawing-city

Drawing in Cornwall over Easter

Sketching out and about in Padstow, North Cornwall. Busy harbour...lots to draw!

Urban Sketchers Manchester draw at Chorlton's Big Green Happening

Urban Sketchers Manchester were invited to sketch at the 'Big Green Happening' festival in Manchester yesterday. It was at St Clement's church, which is in Chorlton - a leafy cosmopolitan south Manchester suburb, and the event was about promoting sustainability and a greener way of life. Lots of really interesting eco-businness in attendance including quirky craft stalls, delicatessens, vegan food, craft beer, organic wines, bicycle repairs and ethical fashion…and as the website says the event was promoting...'campaigners, makers, doers, growers, educators and builders'. It was a really friendly family orientated event...how nice on a lovely spring afternoon which was perfect urban sketching weather! 

Here's my drawing from the afternoon (too much talking...much of it about urban sketching rather than drawing in my case!) and also a photograph of us with our finished drawings in the sunshine.

Tate Liverpool summer school

Here is a link to the Tate Liverpool summer school I am thrilled to be leading in July. Theme is (unsurprisingly!) 'drawing the city'. It coincides with the Nasreen Mohemedi and Modrian exhibitions and will include gallery talks and visits. The morning will be based at the Tate and the afternoons will be spent out on sketchcrawls around the city. http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/courses-and-workshops/drawing-city

As a companion event Urban Sketchers Manchester will be partaking in the 44th Worldwide SketchCrawl on Saturday July 12th and visiting Liverpool, starting outside the Tate at 11am. Full details and itinerary to be published in due course.

Update

A belated blog post. Not sure where the time goes, it's been a hectic few weeks. Anyway delighted to say that the Urban Sketchers Manchester blog has been launched which has been taking up some of my time. You can find it here http://urbansketchers-manchester.blogspot.co.uk/ Also here is an illustration I recently did for Creative Tourist www.creativetourist.com to accompany an article on Manchester Cathedral.