LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

This year was challenging and encouraging for Urban Sketchers. Many of you stepped out into your cities and towns and started sketching again alone or in small groups. The posts on Instagram and Facebook showed happy masked faces enjoying the opportunity to show the world one drawing at a time.

This year the community’s enthusiasm and love of sketching was demonstrated during the Sketch Together Event that spanned the globe’s time zones. The #usksketchtogether and #sketchtogether hashtags have thousands of images and drawings from around the world showing an engaged network of sketchers. Our mission is to support activities like these, and to that end The Events Grant Program was developed to help chapters develop regional events.

The Events, Community Workshop, and Reportage grants are all designed to provide the resources for sketchers to organize events, learn alongside instructors and other groups, and express their storytelling abilities. This year all three grants were active and were a major initiative to maintain the organization’s mission through these challenging times.

The membership committee continued its global meetings and saw a rise in groups applying to be USk Chapters. Chapters represent over 120,000 sketchers in over 60 countries and keep the urban sketching movement strong, fresh, and energized.

The website working group spent 6 months developing and designing the organization’s new website with TGW, a website design firm in Rochester, New York. The group was tasked with revitalizing the USk website to clearly demonstrate who we are and what we do. The variety of platforms available today relieve the website from having to be all things to all people, allowing the website to focus on the basics needed to understand our mission. Drawing Attention transitioned from a monthly to quarterly publication and in the coming months will be available on the new website. It will continue to keep us informed and up to date on what happens around the world, sharing information in various languages.

Finally, the Executive Board elected a new President, Vice President, Treasurer and Events Director. The new board will continue to work together to fulfill the organization’s mission and to serve urban sketchers all over the world.

Keep Sketching!