The Art Of Urban Sketching, Gabriel Campanario - Book Review

I'm still making my way through my birthday books and this one has taken a while to get through as it's a 320 page paperback monster.

This is going to be quite a quick review though.  It's a book that entirely met my expectations: I knew what it was getting into before I added it to the list.  There's a short introduction talking about what urban sketching is, and about the kit you need.  Then most of the book is a tour around the world, showing off the work of different artists in every location.  Then there are about 70 pages at the end showing off more work but divided up by subject rather than by geographical location.

So it's really a book showing off the artwork of lots of urban sketchers.  Although there's the odd tip here and there in the book, I didn't learn much from them.  Actually, the more books I collect, the more difficult it is for authors to teach me new things.  Anyway, the real benefit of the book to me is that it's a source of inspiration.  All the artists are very different to each other.  Some of the work is pretty awful but some of it is really innovative and gives me great ideas for future paintings.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though, so I guess people will disagree with me on which category to put individual paintings in.

I also found it not a great book to read.  Most of the reading material is only short bits of text next to artworks or to photos of artists.  After a while you get sick of reading about how the only way to really understand the city is to go out drawing it or how much the artist bonds with the people or whatever.  Whenever I go back to this book, it will be to flick through and look at the pictures.  Also, when I come back to flick through the book, there will be no need for me to distinguish between the geographical and subject sections - they'll just blend together into one long conveyor belt of artworks to study.  I'll be more interested in style than in the underlying subject matter.

I've come to the conclusion, by the way, that I'm not an urban sketcher.  This is because:

- I can't imagine ever doing paintings in a sketchbook, especially if they run over two pages.

- More generally, my painting is motivated by the possibility that what I produce one day might turn out to be a masterpiece, whereas urban sketchers seem to like drawing as a method of "recording the moment".  It's almost an alternative way to write a diary.

- Whereas urban sketchers seem keen to replicate reality, I’m happy to move or eliminate trees/tables/bins if it benefits the composition

- Urban sketchers generally seem to like to include more detail than I do.

Still, there's always stuff for me to learn in books about urban sketching.

It's a book that was worth buying.  It scores an easy three palettes, in that it would have been really difficult for this book to score more or less than that.  Obviously if you're new to urban sketching or to painting, this isn't the place to start.

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