I attended the 22nd Sketchcrawl this past Saturday. What a beautiful day for it, too! For those who are not familiar with Sketchcrawl, it’s a gathering of artists in a critical mass type fashion, who then sketch from life all afternoon, sometimes moving from location to location. It takes place on the same day world-wide, so after the whole thing wraps up, there’s a whole lot of artwork to see as it is updated on Sketchcrawl’s website. You can read more about the idea behind Sketchcrawl through founder Enrico Casarosa’s own words here.

I didn’t take any photos, but here’s a few snapshots by various members that attended throughout the world.

Clockwise from top-left: 1-The post-crawl sharing of sketchbooks in Chinatown, SF , 2- Whooping swans ‘invade’ Sweden much like Sketchcrawlers, 3- A budding artist in Seoul - Korea, 4- When exploring a city as large as Rome, it’s important to have a light kit, 5- This artist rallied out, despite needing crutches!

My buddy Christine MacTernan and I sketched in Portsmouth Square in Chinatown for the length of the event. There are enough interesting characters in that one spot alone to keep you occupied for hours on end…

…regardless of their age…

…and when I say “keep you occupied”, that includes occupying your sketchbook, literally, like Wendy borrowing mine to sketch the planter box above (with her wonderful addition of “teacup” cherry blossoms).

These “occupations” resulted in Christine spending much of her playground time without a sketchbook.

We ran into another buddy of ours, Jake Hallstrom, and finished the crawl off with some drinks at Vesuvio, a favorite spot of mine, and one of many for one, Jack Kerouac.

All in all, an afternoon well spent!

Image credits in order of appearance: Sketchcrawl Logo by Enrico Casarosa, photos -Ronnie Del Carmen,  Anne Litto, Kim Mikyung, Antonello Riommi,  Vincent Kukuya