The first ever Liverpool Urban Sketchers sketch by Paul Gatenby in November 2014
On a wet Saturday in November 2014, eight artists met up in the café of the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool for a cup of coffee before venturing out to go sketching in the rain. This was the first meet up of Urban Sketchers Liverpool, soon to be an official chapter of the world wide Urban Sketchers movement.
The numbers were fairly low in the first few months, usually between ten to twelve people would turn up, but following an article about the Sketchers in the publication 'Art in Liverpool', we found ourselves exceeding twenty to twenty five people at every meeting. We soon had to check if venues were happy with us all turning up en masse!
In 2018 Liverpool celebrated the 10th anniversary of being the European Capital of Culture. We held a full weekend of sketch walks over the weekend of 29th June – 1st July, and over a hundred sketchers joined us.
Urban sketching has become a world wide phenomenon because it is so accessible and supportive. It costs nothing to come along and sketching our city celebrates our surroundings, documents our world and it is a great way to meet people.
We’ve had a great ten years as urban sketchers in Liverpool, we’ve made art, made friends, survived a pandemic, celebrated our city, been soaked in the rain, blistered by the sun and we can’t wait for the next ten years.
We are now planning a tenth anniversary book and a weekend of celebrations so check back here for information as it becomes available.
Paul Gatenby
Liverpool Urban Sketchers (LUSk) meet on the first Saturday of the month. The venue changes each time so take a look on the Facebook page for details of the next meet up.