Urban sketching is a fascinating movement that has spread either despite or thanks to Instagram. These days, not many people would think of carrying around a sketchpad and paints and spending half an hour drawing, when in a couple of seconds one can take several photos on a phone always close at hand. Now imagine that instead of going through an endless scroll of photos, you open your precious, even if a bit worn, notebook, with traces of coffee from your favourite café on the cover, and inside are your most important memories in the form of sketches.
Keeping a sketch pad of city scenes is by no means a new phenomenon. Still, a whole community of 'urban sketchers' has formed around this hobby in recent years. In 2009, Urban Sketchers was officially registered in the USA as a non-profit organisation and created its own website. Today, Urban Sketchers affiliates exist in around 300 cities worldwide, and that number is growing every year. Wherever you may go, there's a high probability you'll come across fellow 'sketch mates'. And Poland is no exception.
A tenet of the Urban Sketchers movement (not only in Poland, but everywhere) is that people who don't know how to draw can also join – the experienced members encourage them and remind them that skill comes with practice, and that talent is no prerequisite. Regular meetings of the 'sketchers' have taken place in Poznań, Wrocław, Warsaw, and Katowice, and the most active artists visit other cities regularly. 'I conduct master classes, I like to participate in symposiums organised by the international Urban Sketchers group, and I always plan my vacations so that there are new things to draw', says Justyna Wojnowska, who runs the Urban Sketchers Poland Facebook group.
Street sketches by members of the ‘Urban Sketchers Poland’ group, photo: Piotr Dutkiewicz / courtesy of the author
The concept of 'urban sketching' extends beyond just drawing architecture. People (on the street, on buses, in cafés), a cup of coffee and a baked treat, or pigeons sitting on some particularly picturesque window can all be found on sketchpad pages. In urban sketching, it isn't customary to copy photos or finish a drawing at home – it's important to capture the fleeting moments of city life and convey its atmosphere. Urban sketching, it turns out, is a kind of reportage.
