Bellingham’s ‘Acid Ball’

Bellingham’s Waypoint Park feels a bit like Gas Works Park in Seattle. A giant boiler from the old pulp mill that once occupied the site has been repurposed as the park’s centerpiece. While I sat to sketch it under cloudy…

H-Mart food court

Sketched while getting a delicious Vietnamese beef sandwich and pho at the H-Mart Asian food court in Lynnwood. This is a place I come to with my family from time to time. Always tasty food and a fun experience to…

La Push

A quiet morning in La Push, Washington, listening to the sound of the Pacific Ocean and sketching one of many enormous driftwood logs that fill the beach.

Reportage News: Sketchers at the Paris Olympics, Calendar and an Important Update

Dear readers,My first batch of sketching news after the unofficial end of summer is bittersweet.I’m excited to call attention to some sketchers who documented the summer Olympic Games in Paris. While none of them was specifically commissioned to be there, their work underscores the unique value of hand-drawn reportage as a visual human record of […]

To access this post, you must purchase On the Spot.

Reportage news: Lydia Wood, John Donohue, Stan Mack, ‘Sketchbook Reveal’ by James Hobbs, Calendar

Drawing London, one pub at a timePhoto courtesy of Lydia WoodThere is something special about pubs and sketching.Back in the early 2000s, pub crawls inspired Italian storyboard artist Enrico Casarosa to start World Wide Sketch Crawl, a precursor of Urban Sketchers.Pubs are the subject of choice for Lydia Wood, an artist who’s on a quest to draw every pub in London. On […]

To access this post, you must purchase On the Spot.

Urban Sketchers Nantes

I had the most wonderful time meeting urban sketchers in Nantes during the 10th anniversary of the local group. The event was spearheaded by the super welcoming and super friendly Nicolas Loustalot.

Rewind: Lapin’s journey from drawing Paris commuters to publishing more than 40 books

How do you launch a career as an independent reportage artist or professional urban sketcher?While still working as a graphic designer in Paris in his mid 20s, Lapin honed his drawing skills sketching subway commuters. He also tried to use as much of his vacation time “to go far away, usually alone with a sketchbook.”In […]

To access this post, you must purchase On the Spot.

Reportage News: Uganda Sketchbook, The Visual Anthropologist, Urban Sketcher Village in Erlangen

Uganda’s landscape and wildlife in watercolor and pencil“I traveled to Uganda to make one of my dreams a reality: to witness the mountain gorillas.” —Joan LeónHot off the press!Barcelona-based sketcher Joan León, the author of Ilustrando Sudamérica*, takes us to a whole new continent in Cuaderno de Uganda ($16.77 on Etsy), a publication he released last week just in […]

To access this post, you must purchase On the Spot.

Reportage News: Mereida Fajardo, Joan Chiverton, Chip Sullivan, Luís Simões, plus a new Sketcher Press book!

Hello readers,Here’s a new bulletin of sketching and reportage news. If you like what you read, please share so others can learn about On the Spot and Sketcher Press.Behind the scenes at a London hospital“Vital Organs” is a newly-released 48-page publication collecting the gripping reportage drawings made by Mereida Fajardo at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital […]

To access this post, you must purchase On the Spot.

Reportage News: Simo Capecchi in Adesso magazine; Paul Madonna’s All Over Coffee; Substack Reads features On the Spot

Hello readers,Some housekeeping:On the Spot has a new tagline: the Magazine of Reportage Illustration. This slogan better reflects my original goal for the newsletter: to create a reader-supported publication that pays artists for articles of compelling visual storytelling. In light of the new tagline, “Sketching News Roundups” are now called “Reportage News.” These posts will continue to […]

To access this post, you must purchase On the Spot.