Years ago it wasn’t unusual to see Michigan State University art students walking around Leland as part of MSU’s summer art school, sketchbooks in hand.
Sunday will see a return of artists, walking and sketching their way through Fishtown, Leland Harbor, Main Street and the Old Art Building (OAB).
The OAB will host its first-ever urban sketching workshop, facilitated by Martha Elchert.
“It’s not a class. It’s an event to meet and draw on location,” Elchert said.
While there is some overlap between plein air and urban sketching, the former tends to focus on the aesthetic outcome of the finished piece, whereas the latter’s primary goal is on storytelling, witnessing, and recording, using any medium, indoors and outdoors.
Elchert is a longtime member of Urban Sketchers (USK), a global community of sketchers dedicated to the practice of on-location drawing. Their tagline is “Sharing our love for the places where we live and travel—one drawing at a time.”
“Urban” sketching is a bit of a misnomer as it doesn’t have to take place in a city. It can be done in any environment, indoors or outdoors, in urban, rural, or natural areas.
Elchert, who is rarely without her sketch pad, has sketched while visiting Nice, France and San Antonio, Texas, among others.
“There’s a reporting aspect to it,” she said. “The sketches also document where we are in world history.”
Local sketchers will gather at the OAB Sunday at 11 a.m. and from there will head to the designated sites to capture what they see from direct observation. Sketchers use any kind of media to tell the story of their surroundings, the places they live, and where they travel.
Color is added with watercolor, colored pens or pencils.
They will spend the day sketching and will return to the OAB at 3 p.m. for a “throw down” when the artists can look at what they’ve drawn and talk about what they’ve produced.
Cost of the sketch event is $15 which goes to the OAB.
Membership in USK is free. “It costs nothing to join,” she said. “Once you’re a member you can connect with other artists from all over the world.” As of December 2022, the non-profit organization USK, had 351 official chapters in over 60 countries and 374 cities. In 2021, USK added 25 new chapters across 11 countries and five continents.
Elchert is among several artists working to establish a Traverse City chapter of Urban Sketchers which would include Grand Traverse, Benzie, Antrim and Leelanau counties.
More information about the local effort is available at uskgrandtraverse@ gmail.com or Urban Sketchers Traverse City on Facebook.
Editor’s note: Martha Elchert is the wife of Enterprise parent company Blackbird LLC COO John Elchert.
