New from Simone and Pete

Two new books have been published in the past few months by artists well known in urban sketching circles, and I have drawings in both of them. Archisketcher by Simone Ridyard and Creative Sketching Workshop by Pete Scully are both published in the UK by Apple. With Katherine Tyrrell's Sketching 365 and my own Sketch Your World, they make up a quartet of drawing books published by Apple that reveal themselves through the similar covers and designs (well done that RotoVision team).

Simone's Archisketcher focuses on the nitty-gritty of urban sketching: architecture. It has drawings by about 40 artists, and I particularly like the way it gets beneath the surface to look at how cities have changed and developed, focuses on different architectural styles, and explores the characters of neighbourhoods well known to particular contributors. It is great to be led through the streets by Simone, who is a Manchester-based architect and senior lecturer — she is playing a central role in the annual Urban Sketchers symposium that heads to that city in July 2016.

Pete Scully is based in Davis, California, but English — we've only met once at a sketchcrawl he organised through the East End. His book, Creative Sketching Workshop, takes the form of a series of workshops by 12 artists who each explore their own approaches to particular themes, such as drawing in bars, making travel portraits or street sketching. Each section starts with a jumping-off point to get you started, followed by a series of examples by the artist. It's a book, like Simone's, that urges us to get out and draw.

They are on sale in the usual places, usually close to Sketch Your World and Sketching 365.

Coming up in 2016: Pen and Ink

I have a new book out in 2016. It's called Pen and Ink, and it's published in the UK by Frances Lincoln in June. Before that, in the new year, it will be published in French and German editions. I'll post more details of these — and other editions — when I have them.

The book features the drawings of around 30 artists (some old favourites, others new discoveries) who, as the title effectively suggests, work with pen and ink. It's a medium that is broad in scope, as are the works that are featured in it. It's available for pre-order now, but I'll post more about it, and the artists featured in it, in time.