T.K. JUSTIN NG

SKETCHING IN 2020: WHY SKETCH?

BY T.K. JUSTIN NG, USK VANCOUVER

Aquick backstory: I recently published my second book, ‘The Vancouver Sketchbook’. Rather than just sharing drawings, I spent months researching the city to tie together the evolution of the city’s urbanism and its pictorial identity. In the process, several unexpected and somewhat tangential themes surfaced. While my first manuscript of the book included pages dedicated to these topics, most of them were omitted in order to keep the book’s content succinct and appealing to a broad audience. I have recently begun to piece these ideas back together to share with you.

So why did I start on-location sketching?

The desire to represent and communicate to others the world around us is human nature. Before we are able to write or speak clearly, drawing was the only accessible form of representing our surroundings. While I have been drawing since kindergarten, it was only in 2013, at age 17, that I picked up a copy of Gabriel Campanario’s ‘The Art of Urban Sketching’ and began to set aside time each week for on-location sketching. That was the year I took a deep-dive and plunged into the world of art and design.

Instead of kicking a ball or picking up a guitar, I chose to sit in the intimidating gaze of the public and draw what I saw. When people asked me why I prefer sketching over other extra-curricular activities, I would bring up one of three reasons. Firstly, in the process of recreating what lay before my eyes on paper, I become intimately acquainted with my subject, forcing me to observe,

rather than gaze. Secondly, the patience and time taken to sketch exposes me to the nuances of light, sound and smell, which give meaning to the world around me. Furthermore, sketching is a forgiving way to make art. ‘To sketch’ traditionally implied the notion of a speedy snapshot of a work in progress, where perfection (be it conceptually or technically) is not important. If intimidation dissuades many people from drawing, the freedom of sketching is sure to pique their interest once more. While all three of these reasons are valid, they are qualities of sketching that have stayed largely consistent over centuries. They do not explain why people sketch in today’s world, where other mediums of expression appear more convenient. So what has changed?

In the past, sketches were seen as work-in-process because they were iterations made in preparation for a final piece. Each sketch was an improvement of the previous and the success of the sketch relied on how the final painting turned out. Today, most urban sketchers do not intend to translate their sketches into larger works, but sketches continue to be seen as part of a collection – often in sketchbooks. Unlike iterations, each sketch tells a different snippet of a story and it is only through flipping the pages of a sketchbook that a larger narrative is revealed. When one sketchbook is filled, the story moves on to the next. No notion of a final piece is there to disrupt the story. As such, the project of sketching is not about the drawing but about the process itself.

By focusing on the endless process, sketching is ritualized. This ritualization enables the emergence of a community on the increasingly visual internet, allowing the group to strengthen its influence globally. For example, @ urbansketchers has more than 200,000 followers on Instagram. Not only do its

members help and rally one another, but they also sketch together at ‘sketch-crawls’. The stereotype of a lonely artist sketching in the street corner is no more. Like yoga and spinning, sketching has become social and commercial.

These communities democratize sketching by making it accessible far beyond the small circle of professional artists. It is this fundamental change in the demographics of sketchers that have revived the art of urban sketching.

I still remember when I first started sketching, when sketches were only ever on display at museums. It was as though on-location sketches were reserved for a world I don’t recognize. But that has changed. Today, Toronto subways are plastered with sketches drawn by commuters. Urban sketches have become commonplace in advertising in Hong Kong. In bookstores across the globe, there have been more published sketchbooks and an army of ‘how-to sketch’ books encourage people to draw their surroundings. Even within the field of architecture, where hyper-realistic digital renderings are easily generated, pseudo-en-plein air sketches - drawings that look like urban sketches but are drawn from imagination - are experiencing an unexpected revival. Even at a time when most people carry a camera with them at all times, sketching has gained new relevance. Through its transformation into a movement, sketchers have evolved sketching into a contemporary mode of understanding and representing the world.

Read more about my book here. This article originally appeared on the urbansketchers.org blog on February 16, 2020.

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