Today's blog comes from Candace Weir, Central Library staff:
I have just been reminded that the pencil is a wonderful travel companion. Gabriel Campanario takes it on tour in The Art of Urban Sketching: drawing on location around the world. Funny how with so many apps and tablets with instant web links, artists still want to record their impressions on paper, using techniques that have been around for centuries.
Campanario is the founder of Urban Sketchers website which connects an international following of artists who record their travels and communities. Their motto is “see the world one drawing at a time.”
While most of the book consists of sketches of unique locales, there is also a section called Drawing Inspiration. It deals with typical urban features that offer inspiration to the artist, from skylines, streetscapes, and panoramas to monuments, cars and furni
ture.
The sketchbooks themselves are interesting. One urban sketcher repurposed old accounting ledgers for his drawings.
I had a lot of fun looking through this book and it reminded me of an older book from the collection, one of our gems. Holy China by Feliks Topolski was published in 1968. With loose and expressive pencil sketches, Topolski recorded the changing landscape of people and places in China in the early days of the Cultural Revolution.
- Candace