Gabi

This is Gabi. He is the founder of the "Urban Sketching" movement sweeping the world. Well, perhaps that's overstating it but he is at the epicenter of a large movement in sketching. In 2008 I started sketching passionately and as I was looking for inspiration I stumbled on a number of blogs of people posting their sketches of the cities they lived in. One of the first blogs I found was Gabi's, where he posted the sketches he was doing in and around Seattle, Washington as a sketch journalist for the Seattle Times.

Sometime in late 2008 he had the bright idea to start a blog that organized about 100 sketchers from all over the world. It has a huge following now. Their motto is "See the world one drawing at a time." All of this has led to him writing a book called "The Art of Urban Sketching" and putting on international sketching conferences. I went to a conference in 2012 with my son and got to meet Gabi and many of the artists that inspired me as I began sketching.

He is such a nice, easy going guy also and I can't imagine a better ambassador for promoting sketching as a way to see and understand the world we live in.

10"x16" pencil, ink and watercolor.