Getting Inspired by The World of Urban Sketching

I haven’t been able to sketch much this past week because all my supplies have been packed away for our move to a new house. I did leave a small sketchbook and my yellow Lamy Safari pen in my day bag, but there was so much going on I couldn’t quite get into the sketching-zone. But that doesn’t mean I’d forsaken all thoughts of sketching!

The World of Urban Sketching

I recently purchased Stephanie Bower The World of Urban Sketching as an ebook. It looks a lot more impressive in print, but at the time my only option was the ebook version (see the print flip-through video below).

I’ve been making my way through this urban sketching book and some of the styles have been really inspirational, and others have left me cold.

When I started getting serious about urban sketching, I became slightly obsessed with finding my sketching style. Then I realised I had to loosen the grip on that search and let it reveal itself. And since then I’ve been on the lookout for urban sketchers that have a similar style to me so I can learn from them. I challenge any budding urban sketcher to buy and look through this book and not get inspired by a majority of the sketches and sketchers.

There’s so many different ways to sketch, and this is never more evident than during my perusal through The World of Urban Sketching. Take a look for yourself in the following video:

Book Flip of The World of Urban Sketching

Although this book predominantly features scenes with buildings, there are a smattering of people sketches throughout. I’ve been going through the book and finding sketchers whose line-style appeals to me, and finding and following them on instagram.

The book doesn’t have many tutorials, but it is full of tips, sketching techniques and a-ha moments from each artist, which hammers home the realisation that we all started at the same place – a passion for sketching, and each have our own unique creative path to travel.