100 postcards in a box

Gabriel Campanario's hugely successful book The Art of Urban Sketching was published in 2012, and I was lucky enough to have my drawings included in it. Now comes a boxed set of 100 postcards of different images from the book – again including something by me – on sale in the UK from 2 April 2015 (Quarry, £12.99), and already out in the US. It's a great collection of scenes from every continent and 30 countries drawn on location by many of my favourite urban sketchers.
It's a tricky one: are they too good to post to people, or so good that they shouldn't be kept in a box but shared through the post? 

Urban Sketchers London show opens at Foyles bookshop

James Hobbs, Foyles bookshop

The exhibition The Art of Urban Sketching, which is linked to the book of the same name by USk founder Gabriel Campanario, has now opened at Foyles bookshop, London. It features five monochrome drawings by me straight from the sketchbook, including one that was reproduced in the book. (So not the one on the right here, which I drew on Charing Cross Road last week.)

There are five other London-based artists showing in the exhibition: Nathan Brenville, Barry Jackson, Olha Pryymak, Katherine Tyrrell and Zhenia Vasiliev. You can follow the evolving introductions to each artist at the Urban Sketchers London blog, which is being updated each day of the show.

Foyles, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB
Monday 16 July to Sunday 22 July 2012
More about the show here.

Coming soon at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, and much more

Seventh Avenue cafe

I'm going to be exhibiting work, along with other London-based Urban Sketchers, from the hugely successful The Art of Urban Sketching by Gabriel Campanario at Foyles Gallery, on the third floor of the bookshop's Charing Cross Road store, from 16 to 22 July. The book features work by urban artists around the world who contribute to the Urban Sketchers blog. The show is part of the Foyles's Sketching the City season, which continues until 4 August. I've written an article about Urban Sketchers for the summer issue of Artists & Illustrators magazine, out now.

More? My work continues at the Fat Cat cafe, along with that of fellow N16 Pop-up artist Deborah Sandersley, at 119 Stoke Newington Church Street until Tuesday 17 July.

And, of course, my work, is also on sale at IKEA stores worldwide and always on display at Skylark 2, in the Oxo Tower Wharf, on London's South Bank...

The Art of Urban Sketching: London launch on Saturday

The Art of Urban Sketching by Urban Sketchers founder Gabriel Campanario is having its London launch this Saturday 19 May at Cass Art, Islington, from 12.30pm to 5.30pm. Six of the artists with work in the book will be there during the afternoon (including me - I'll be there from 3pm onwards). We'll be taking some sketchbooks, and things to draw with and the book will be on sale.

Everyone welcome! It's free! Who could ask for more? It's close to Angel tube and a host of bus services.

How to find Cass Art, with a printable map. See you there.

The Art of Urban Sketching: a quick flick through

Have a quick look at "The Art of Urban Sketching", out any minute now. My work flies through at about 47 seconds, and again later on...

The Art of Urban Sketching

I've been blogging occasionally on the Urban Sketchers website for a few years now, and I'm one of 85 artists profiled in a new book about the international non-profit organisation. The Art of Urban Sketching, by its founder Gabriel Campanario, is published in February by Quarry at £17.99.

Urban Sketchers is a great thing. Invited artists around the world post their drawings and paintings with a few words about how they came about. Whether the drawing is on the back of an envelope or in one of those swish Moleskine sketchbooks that some artists seem to like, it can have an international audience - and international critical response - within minutes. This can be kind of odd, and strangely exciting, when you consider what usually happens to many such drawings. Urban Sketchers is fantastically international, holds an annual symposium, which I haven't been able to attend yet, has nearly 16,000 Facebook fans and 7,000 people subscribing to its blog feed. It's worth visiting, if you haven't already.

As its motto says: "See the world one drawing at a time."