

View of St Albans Abbey from the Redbourn road coming into the city from the north.
"I live in a village on the edge of the small cathedral city of St Albans, near London in the UK. My city used to be the site of Verulamium, which was one of the largest towns in Roman Britain. St Albans is a delightful mix of old and new with a twice weekly street market, so plenty of interesting places to sketch.
I started sketching about three years ago when I realised that I wasn’t going to win the lottery and be able to give up the day job to devote myself to being an artist. My solution was simply to squeeze the art into the spaces in the day.
Over the past couple of years I’ve been focusing on sketching the countryside within a mile of my home and drawing my family but I’m inspired so much by the Urban Sketcher’s site that I’m very keen to share my city with you.
A low boredom threshold means that I can’t seem to stick to the same media or to the same size sketchbook so I expect you’ll be seeing sketches in a variety of styles."
• Julie's blog.
• Julie's art on Flickr.