Urban Sketchers London exhibition at Timberyard Old Street

Hanging the show at Timberyard

Six of London's Urban Sketchers – Thomas Corrie, James Hobbs, Isabelle Laliberté, Jhih-Ren Shih, Katherine Tyrrell and Zhenia Vasiliev – are showing drawings at Timberyard cafe, Old Street, London, following on from a recent exhibition at its Covent Garden branch. 

The Old Street cafe, which is a popular destination for freelance/wifi/e-workers, and close to the cluster of tech companies around the Old Street roundabout, will host the exhibition until 30 June 2014. Details of the private view and sketchcrawl are coming soon.

Visit our Flickr site for a short video of the exhibition.

Timberyard, 61-67 Old Street, London EC1V 9HW

29 March-30 June 2014

Open Monday to Friday 8am-8pm, weekends 10am-6pm

@timberyarduk, @urbsketchlondon 

Exhibiting artists Jhin-Ren Shih, Isabelle Laliberté and Thomas Corrie

Urban Sketchers London exhibition at Timberyard Old Street

White lion street

With this sketch, I experimented a bit more and has taken it to print room. In order to preserve sketch quality, I used a mix of dry point and monoprint - but didn't post the results here, as it obviously wasn't done on location! Here's the link.

White lion street

Urban Sketchers London exhibition opens at Foyles

Page spreads from the Art of Urban Sketching and urban sketches by Katherine Tyrrell

Urban Sketches by Barry Jackson, Zhenia Vasiliev, Nathan Brenville and James Hobbs

Urban Sketchers London's first exhibition has opened at The Gallery at Foyles, Third Floor, 113-119 Charing Cross Road.  Page spreads from The Art of Urban Sketching also feature on the walls of the Gallery and the exhibition is called The Art of Urban Sketching.

This week, for those of you are unable to visit we'll be giving you a virtual preview of the exhibition.

Below is an extract from the catalogue for the exhibition.  Every day this week we'll also be featuring the correspondents and their artwork in the exhibition.

You can, of course, only get a really good look if you come to the exhibition!  Plus Foyles also have a very good section about Art on the second floor of the bookshop!

The Art of Urban Sketching

You might have seen them at the coffee shop, on the tube or in the park.  Pen and paper in hand, or maybe wielding a waterbrush and small palette, they are sketching – drawing and painting the world around them; documenting both the magical and the mundane aspects of the city.

Their open sketchbooks show lively streetscapes, soaring architecture, green spaces and intriguing faces – all quickly rendered on the spot – sometimes furtively, sometimes in front of a gathering crowd.

In watercolour, ink, graphite or coloured pencils, urban sketchers draw scenes from their daily lives in cities around the world.

Urban Sketchers began as a Flickr group in 2007 and has since grown to become a website showcasing contributions from correspondents across the globe. A network of regional and countrywide groups of urban sketchers local to an area has also developed – and Urban Sketchers London is one of these.

Our mission is to "Show the World, One Drawing at a Time".

The Art of Urban Sketching – now available to purchase in Foyles – is the first collection of images, advice and inspiration from this growing community.

The book is already on its third reprint.  The first and second print runs sold out within the first three months following publication in the USA earlier this year and has been eagerly snapped up by sketching fans around the world.

Website / Blog: http://www.urbansketchers.org

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/urbansketches/

Urban Sketchers London

Urban Sketchers in London share their drawings of London on our blog (see below). London-based artists and correspondents for Urban Sketchers London who are displaying sketches in this exhibition are:

Nathan Brenville	Ohla Pryymak
James Hobbs	Katherine Tyrrell
Barry Jackson	Zhenia Vasiliev

Blog: http://urbansketcherslondon.blogspot.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/UrbSketchLondon

Contact: urbansketcherslondon@gmail.com

OUR MANIFESTO

• We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation.
• Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel.
• Our drawings are a record of time and place.
• We are truthful to the scenes we witness.
• We use any kind of media and cherish our individual styles.
• We support each other and draw together.
• We share our drawings online.
• We show the world, one drawing at a time.

Urban Sketchers London exhibition opens at Foyles

London's Urban Sketchers exhibit at Foyles bookshop

James Hobbs, Foyles, Charing Cross Road

Have you bought a copy of The Art of Urban Sketching by Gabriel Campanario yet?

Urban Sketchers London are delighted to be publicising this very popular book and exhibiting their work by participating in Foyles Bookshop's Sketching the City summer season of exhibitions about sketching.

Works by London-based urban sketchers that are included in The Art of Urban Sketching will be on display at the third-floor gallery in Foyles flagship bookshop at 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London from next Monday.

The show also includes:

• excerpts and drawings reproduced from the book by other urban sketchers from around the world
• plus other framed works by London-based Nathan Brenville, James Hobbs, Barry Jackson, Olha Pryymak, Katherine Tyrrell and Zhenia Vasiliev. 

The Art of Urban Sketching Exhibition is for one week from Monday 16 July to Sunday 22 July 2012. For more details about the gallery's opening hours and how to get to Foyles, check its website.

The book is on sale in the shop and at the exhibition.

Follow London's Urban Sketchers on Twitter: @urbsketchlondon

Further details about the events in Foyles Sketching in the City season, which continues until 26 August.

London's Urban Sketchers exhibit at Foyles bookshop

Launch of the Art of Urban Sketching in London

London Urban Sketchers showed their sketchbooks and talked about their favourite materials and methods at Cass Art, Islington on Saturday 19 May. They were busy all afternoon, and the book got an excellent response from shoppers!

Zhenia Vasiliev talks about urban sketching

Adebanji Alade demonstrates his approach to drawing faces

KatherineTyrrell demonstrates coloured pencil technique

James Hobbs talks about  sketching

Launch of the Art of Urban Sketching in London

The Art of Urban Sketching book launch

The Art of Urban Sketching, by Urban Sketchers founder Gabriel Campanario, has its London launch on Saturday 19th May at Cass Art's flagship art materials store in Islington N1.

Six of the London-based Urban Sketchers with work in the book – Adebanji Alade, James Hobbs, Barry Jackson, Olha Pryymak, Katherine Tyrrell and Zhenia Vasiliev – will be present on Saturday 19 May between 12.30pm and 5.30pm, with some of their sketchbooks and drawing materials, and ready to answer questions.

Bonus!  The Art of Urban Sketching will be on sale at a special discounted price of just £12.95 for one day only.  Here's what the Cass art Facebook page says

Get the incredible new book 'The Art of Urban Sketching' for only £12.95 at our launch event in Islington tomorrow! Usually £17.99 this offer is valid for tomorrow only. Drop in to meet the artists featured in the book and get tips and advice on drawing on the go.

Don't know much about Urban Sketching? Look here.

Wondering how to get to Cass Art?

Here's a link to Cass Art Islington, 66-67 Colebrooke Row, London N1 8AB Click the link for a map of where this flagship art store is located.

• Nearest Tube station: Highbury Islington
• Nearest Train Station: Essex Road (North London Line)
• Buses: Put "Colebrooke Row Borough of Islington, N1" into the TfL bus maps and it will identify all the buses that run near to Cass Arts. The click the number of the bus to see the route and the bus stops.

These are the links to:

• the Transport for London map of the Planned weekend Tube closures for the weekend 19/20 May 2012. This is the link to the Transport for London pdf file which shows the service disruptions this weekend.
• Use the Journey Planner on the TfL website to work out the best route to the store on Saturday afternoon.

We look forward to meeting you there.

The Art of Urban Sketching book launch

Several street cafes sketches

Several sketches from a refreshed, long-due sun-lit London!

From a street cafe in East London, on the crossing of Great Eastern Street and Leonard Street:

View from Hemingford Arms, Islington, in the evening:

Pigeons on a street lamp, Small Market Street, Angel:

People at Canteen, in Southbank (this one is actually done indoors):

Several street cafes sketches

London spring street and park reportage

All of them are very quick, done almost on the run.

Shoreditch E1 - near the art shop:


Regents Park:


Covent garden crowd on Sunday:

London spring street and park reportage

Meet the correspondents: Zhenia Vasiliev

For me, both a graphic designer and illustrator, drawing is rather a process of thinking rather producing a finished piece. I love to think about how things look like, and drawing helps me with this, so sketching is a big part of my profession.

Regrettably, my full-time work schedule does not allow me to do full-scale sketching sessions too often, so most of the time I do a sketch on the go, whenever I am - so any place around London will suit me as a sketcher. I love working on along Regents canal, sketching birds, trees and people in the parks, or make a quick street scene from a cafe window, especially when it's cold outside.

I love trying all of the art materials and exploring how different materials work together in a sketch. When I go out of the house, I just grab something that lies on my work table - a bunch of colour pencils, a waterbrush, a watercolour box or just a ballpoint pen. All the materials are worth exploring and give a new dimension to my work.

Visit my blog and check out my flickr.

Marble Arch, waterbrush, india ink

Traffic jam, colour pencils, from an upper deck of a double decker bus.

Upper street sketch, North London, watercolour

Meet the correspondents: Zhenia Vasiliev