Urban Sketching from Asheville to the Twin Cities
Last year we had the honor of supporting several Urban Sketchers events across the US!
By The Art Toolkit Team
We love the urban sketching community and how art brings people from all walks of life together worldwide. Last summer, we were invited to support events held by various Urban Sketchers chapters across the US in a fun sequence of events.
Urban Sketchers (USK) is a global community of artists who sketch on location, whose mission is to raise the artistic, storytelling, and educational value of on-location drawing, promote its practice, and connect people worldwide who draw on location where they live and travel.
First, Lynn Pettipaw of Urban Sketchers Asheville reached out to us to sponsor the first-ever Carolinas Sketch Crawl (pictured in header photo), which united the Urban Sketchers chapters of Asheville, Charlotte, and Greenville. Shortly after that, Sydnye Cohen of Urban Sketchers Chicago and Tracy McDermott of Urban Sketchers Twin Cities emailed us to sponsor their upcoming events, the 10th annual Chicago Sketch Seminar and Watermark Sketch Minneapolis.
We were thrilled to share our supplies in support of artist gatherings across the US, and to see all the fun on social media. By a fun coincidence, we heard that artists we had worked with were participating in these events too! Jenny Jing Zhang, who led a demo at the Chicago event, joined us later in the fall for an Art Toolkit Live Demo, and Mike Daikubara, who’s joined us for a workshop in the past, gave an inspiring keynote speech at the Carolina Sketch Crawl!
Read recaps of these convivial Urban Sketchers events below, written by their respective organizers.
Urban Sketchers Chicago
“This past July marked a major milestone for USK Chicago: the 10th anniversary of the annual Chicago Sketch Seminar! Held at the historic Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, the 2025 seminar brought together sketchers from near and far to celebrate a decade of creativity, community, and on-location drawing.
Workshops took place across the city, from sidewalks and parks to vibrant urban corners, offering participants hands-on experiences in techniques such as Sketching with Gouache, Water-Soluble Ink, and the intriguingly named Sketching on the Dark Side(s), which explored working with toned and black paper.”
—Sydnye Cohen, Urban Sketchers Chicago
Urban Sketchers Asheville, Charlotte, and Greenville
“In June 2025, the first-ever Carolinas Sketch Crawl brought together 100 urban sketchers for a joyful Saturday in Forest City, North Carolina. Hosted by USK Asheville, Charlotte, and Greenville, the event was filled with creative energy, from Mike Daikubara’s inspiring keynote presentation to hands-on workshops, sketch walks, and a postcard sketch exchange with USK Querétaro. Participants also got to enjoy swag bags of goodies and a special raffle of art supplies.
It was a weekend of connection, learning, and celebrating the joy of sketching together. We’re already excited for next year, when the Sketch Crawl will grow into a three-day gathering in Asheville’s River Arts District and downtown area on the first weekend of June 2026.”
—Lynn Pettipaw, Urban Sketchers Asheville
Urban Sketchers Twin Cities
“Urban Sketchers Twin Cities held Watermark Sketch Minneapolis, a free two-day urban sketching event headlined by celebrated urban sketch artist and author James Richards. The event quickly filled to capacity and attracted urban sketchers from Minnesota and Wisconsin USK chapters, as well as folks from Chicago, Illinois, and Portland, Oregon!
Sketchers came together for a weekend of events, including a sketcher social, a keynote address by Mr. Richards, sketch walks through Minneapolis’ oldest neighborhood alongside the Mississippi River, open-air demonstrations by James Richards, Tony Cheng, Pam Luer, Lori Tolonen, and Hannah Colins, and a surprise raffle. The workshops covered a wide range of sketching styles and media from nature sketching to watercolor with ink and gouache, leaving enthusiastic sketchers with new ideas and inspiration for their own sketchbooks.
Watermark concluded with a Sip & Sketch at the historic Whitey’s Old Town Saloon, where they enjoyed special drinks created for the event with names like ‘A 'Lil Sketchy.’
The Watermark events received so much positive feedback that Urban Sketchers Twin Cities plans to host another Watermark event in 2026.”
—Tracy McDermott, Urban Sketchers Twin Cities
Thank you Syndye, Lynn, and Tracy for reaching out to us and for sharing pictures and recaps of your events! If you are not already part of Urban Sketchers, we encourage you to find a chapter near you, and to tag both Art Toolkit and Urban Sketchers in your on-location sketches on Instagram!