MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Great landscape art can transport you to another world. Think of Georgia O'Keeffe's Southwestern hills, Claude Monet's garden of water lilies. For years now, though, groups of amateurs have been gathering with sketchbooks in cities to turn their artistic gazes to the everyday sights of skyscrapers and sidewalks. Deena Prichep stopped by a meeting of urban sketchers in Portland, Oregon.
DEENA PRICHEP, BYLINE: Karen Hansen has ridden her bike past Portland's Union Station for years, but she never really paid attention.
KAREN HANSEN: When you're drawing and painting something, you're really looking at, like, the shapes and the shadows and the textures.
PRICHEP: Hansen is one of about 50 people who gathered outside the train station on a sunny Saturday morning. Some have watercolor sets, some black pens or colored pencils, creating pictures of the old red-brick building with its tall clock tower. Amy Stewart helps organize the Portland Urban Sketchers. They meet up once a month.
AMY STEWART: We'll just pick a different neighborhood to explore, where we might be drawing old houses or little corner markets or, like, maybe there's a cool old movie theater to draw.
PRICHEP: And like today, all sorts of folks show up.
STEWART: People who are just getting into drawing for the first time, more experienced artists. We get a lot of architects and recovering architects.
PRICHEP: People are gathered in little clusters, some talking to each other, some lost in their sketches. Noor Alkurd is at his second Urban Sketchers meeting and says the geometry of urban life is great for beginning artists. And besides, landscapes are overrated.
NOOR ALKURD: Yeah, I mean, come on, cityscapes are so fun. I think drawing has helped me just see more of everyday life. It kind of helps you train your own eye for what you find beautiful.
PRICHEP: The idea of urban sketchers, or the name at least, started almost 20 years ago. Gabriel Campanario was looking to get to know his new home and improve his drawing skills.
GABRIEL CAMPANARIO: We had just moved to Seattle and I started drawing. Like, every day I drew the commuters on the bus. I would draw the mountains, the buildings.
PRICHEP: Campanario posted his drawings on the website Flickr and invited other artists to join the online group, which led to in-person groups and then more chapters and then international gatherings. Urban Sketchers now reports over 500 chapters in over 70 countries.
CAMPANARIO: You can go to another town and meet up with a sketchers group there. And you may not speak the language, but they all can look at your sketchbook and somewhat relate.
PRICHEP: Here in Portland, the meetup ends as they all do - sketchers lay their finished art side by side to compare and admire and encourage each other.
UNIDENTIFIED URBAN SKETCHER #1: Yeah. You know, and I took the small...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED URBAN SKETCHER #2: That's yours right?
UNIDENTIFIED URBAN SKETCHER #1: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED URBAN SKETCHER #2: Am I right?
UNIDENTIFIED URBAN SKETCHER #3: The little one. The little one.
UNIDENTIFIED URBAN SKETCHER #2: This is a gorgeous piece. I love that.
UNIDENTIFIED URBAN SKETCHER #4: You got the windows there. I was just starting to work on that.
PRICHEP: There's some shop talk about technique and materials, some recognition of progress for sketchers who have been coming for a while, but mostly, sketchers say it's just a chance to create a record of a moment, to take in other perspectives and to notice a little bit more about the city they see every day.
For NPR News, I'm Deena Prichep in Portland, Oregon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALLAH LAS' "MULBERRY JAM") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.