Drawing Attention #3 > New ad space and sketcher updates

In this installment of Drawing Attention, our occasional posts with news about the urban sketchers community, we’ll start with announcing the availability of ad space on the main Urban Sketchers site.

We became a nonprofit in December of 2009 with the mission of fostering the art of on-location drawing and connecting sketchers around the world. An initial round of fundraising brought in enough donations to cover the filing fees associated with establishing nonprofit status — and for that, we’re grateful.

Going forward, there’s only so much we can do to fullfill our mission with empty pockets. To raise funds that we can put back into our community via scholarships and grants, we are now seeking sponsors to advertise on the blog. To place an ad, advertisers can click where it says “Support Urban Sketchers by advertising here” on the sidebar and follow the instructions. (We will keep ad content focused on the artistic nature of our community, making sure ads complement the content you see on the blog and have value to our readers.)

And now, on with some news from our members and correspondents!

• José Louro (Lisbon) is launching what we believe is the first post-grad degree in urban sketching in the world at Lisbon’s Instituto d’Artes Visuais, Design e Marketing. The 180-hour program is aimed at college graduates wanting to develop their location-drawing skills. Faculty includes Eduardo Salavisa, Eduardo Corte-Real and Mónica Cid.
• Danielle McManus (NYC) was invited by the non-profit organization Amistad America to sail aboard the Amistad from Mystic Seaport to New London, CT. You can see her reportage from the deck here and here.
• Mariano Recalde (NYC) was featured by blog Tribeca Citizen.
• Bryn Hughes (Sheffield, UK) has been sharing impressive sketches of landmarks around the world on our Facebook page. And it’s no surprise to us that his own Facebook page keeps attracting fans.
• Catalan radio station RAC1 aired a 20 minute broadcast featuring local sketchers Laura Climent and Víctor Martínez, who were at the station’s studio in Barcelona, and yours truly, via phone from Seattle. Find a link to the broadcast (in Catalan) here.

Thanks for visiting and happy sketching,

Gabi Campanario

P.S.: To share sketching related news or just say ‘hi, I’m a sketcher too,’ write to us at urbansketchers at gmail dot com. It may take us a week or two to reply, but we will!