Arting About | A September Catch-Up
What I’ve been Arting About
September has been a bit of a month of changing plans.
I started the month expecting to be heading off to Budapest, with a sketchbook, a travel sketching kit and a rather ambitious plan to spend a few days exploring the city and filling pages.
Unfortunately, that didn’t quite happen.
Due to an operation resulting in a longer recovery period than expected, I had to cancel the trip, which was obviously pretty disappointing. But rather than letting it completely ruin my sketching plans, I decided to make the most of being closer to home and headed off on a train to Tarragona for the day instead.
And, as it turns out, that wasn’t such a bad alternative.
I spent the day sketching with an accordion sketchbook and managed to get almost the entire thing filled — just two pages left to go. I probably would have managed the whole thing too, if it wasn't for a rather unexpected wild goose chase... All is revealed in Budapest Cancelled video.
September has also been a big month for Arting About itself.
The first ARTING ABOUT | Sketch Sessions with Nathan took place, bringing together people from all over the place for an evening of sketching and chatting.
The YouTube channel also passed 4,000 subscribers, which is an exciting milestone considering this all started with me wandering around Venice with a sketchbook.
And one particular video caused quite a stir: my unboxing and first look at Lidl's cheap watercolour set has now passed 50,000 views. Apparently, people have a lot of opinions about Lidl watercolours.
Who knew?
Arting About Lately
The big new thing this month has been ARTING ABOUT | Sketch Sessions with Nathan.
The first session took place in September and was a bit of an experiment to see whether this idea of sitting down together and sketching live would actually work.
Thankfully, it did!
The idea is fairly simple: we get together for a couple of hours, I sketch a few buildings from photographs submitted by viewers, and we have a bit of a chat along the way.
Part of the idea behind the Sketch Sessions is to create something a little bit like an Urban Sketchers community for people who don't have access to one in their local area. It's obviously not quite the same as being out on location with a group of people, sketching together in person, but it's probably about as close as we can get from the comfort of our own homes.
What I particularly enjoyed was seeing just how international it became. The buildings we sketched came from Australia, the United States, Turkey, the UK and Italy — almost like travelling the world without having to board a plane.
I'm also working with Artify brushes during the Sketch Sessions, which has been a great collaboration opportunity and I have enjoyed trying them out on actual sketches.
After the first session, I've decided to keep the format to around two or three sketches per session. Five seemed like a good idea on paper. In practice, it was a rather long evening.
I've also added a way for people watching to get involved during the livestream. There will be QR code on screen which you can scan with your phone, letting you send in a photo of your own sketch directly from your phone. I'll then be able to feature viewers' sketches during the live session, so we're not just sitting here watching me draw — we can actually see what everyone else is working on too.
And the next ARTING ABOUT | Sketch Session with Nathan will be happening on 7 October, so if you fancy joining me for another evening of sketching, and chatting you know where to find me. - Don’t worry if you cant make it as I will leave the replay to be watched at your convenience.
I've also been experimenting with something slightly different on YouTube: beginner urban sketching tutorials.
I recently made a video aimed at people who want to have a go at urban sketching but perhaps don't know where to start, and it was really nicely received.
I'm certainly not claiming to be the great authority on urban sketching — far from it — but I do think there’s something useful in showing people how I approach a sketch, the decisions I make and the process I go through.
So if people want to learn how I do it, rather than being told how urban sketching must be done, I'll be making more of these videos.
A Look in My Sketchbook
A few things I've been sketching this month...
Urban Sketching at home - This is my cactus Christopher!
Torre de les Aigües del Besos - Urban Sketching Tutorial
Fort Scratchley, Australia - My favourite from Sketch Sessions
Tarragona, Spain (not Budapest)
Museo d’Arqueologia de Catalunya
Thanks for stopping by and catching up with me. September may not have gone quite according to plan, but there’s been plenty happening behind the scenes — and I'm really enjoying seeing Arting About slowly grow into something bigger.
Until next time,
Bye.
