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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Rewind: Marielle Durand on drawing inside the French Parliament and around her Paris 13 neighborhood

The guest of my January Live Zoom was Marielle Durand, an artist, author and urban sketcher based in Paris.Durand belongs to a very small group of artists who holds a special pass to draw inside the French Parliament, where she has been documenting political debates since October of 2022.We talked about many things during our 75-minute conversation, […]

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Reportage News: Rolf Schroeter; Christina Wald; Sketchers on the Road; Calendar

Hi readers,It felt good to kick off On the Spot in 2024 with a contributed article by Houston based artist Judith Dollar.Next, I announced this Thursday’s Artist Talk with Marielle Durand (Are you in?).And now it’s time to review some compelling reportage that caught my eye in the past few weeks.Rolf Schroeter’s protest artYou may have seen the news: Marches […]

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Meet my guest for January’s Live Zoom

French artist Marielle Durand has been sketching for more than 20 years, but when she started her career as a professional artist she never imagined the job would open doors like the ones that lead into the French Parliament.Since October 2022, Durand has belonged to a very small group of artists allowed to draw the political debates […]

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Rewind: Louis Netter on Reportage Drawing

Dear subscribers,It was a pleasure to host Irish-American artist and scholar Louis Netter during our December Live Zoom.Netter’s upcoming book, “Reportage Drawing: Vision and Experience” promises to be a must read for any artist and sketcher who wants to harness the full potential of observational drawing. The book is the culmination of the academic research he conducted […]

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Sketching News Roundup: Niki Groom, Olivier Kugler, Victor Juhasz, Anna-Louis Fesltead

Hello readers and welcome new subscribers,I’m glad you are here for another fresh batch of sketching news.Niki Groom at ‘Peace Feast’Art by Niki GroomCommunity events offer great opportunities for reportage. In Bristol, England, local artist Niki Groom was commissioned to document Peace Feast, a multicultural evening of food and music held at Refugees Welcome North Somerset in late November.Art by […]

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Rewind: Live Zoom with Manchester artist Len Grant

Len Grant relies on crowdfunding to publish high-quality books of his sketches.Dear subscribers,How did you like Thursday’s Live Zoom with Len Grant?If you missed it, the recording is at the bottom of this post.I really enjoyed the conversation with Grant. He talked about his professional journey from photography to urban sketching, the evolution of his drawing […]

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