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.

In Pete Scully's new book

I have a couple of chapters in Pete Scully's great new book, Creative Sketching Workshop, which is published now. (The covers, drawn by Pete here, are for the US and UK editions.) I know Pete through the Urban Sketchers network and through joining him on his sketchcrawl around the East End of London a few years ago when he was back visiting the UK (he now lives in Davis, California). And I'm looking forward to seeing him again later in the year.

There are contributions to the book from other artists I've worked with before, including Virginia Hein, Nina Johansson and Melanie Reim. It's great to be in such good company.

Did you spot the family resemblance of his book and Sketch Your World? That's because they are related, along with Simone Ridyard's Archisketcher, just published, and Katherine Tyrrell's Sketching 365, both of which I also have work in. (We are all published in the UK by Apple Press and in the US by North Light.) I'll blog about Simone's book too when I get my hands on a copy.

Here's a page from my parks and gardens chapter in Creative Sketching Workshop, which is available, like the other books, from discerning bookshops and the usual online places.