Mumbai: Meeting every Sunday to bring city on canvas

The loose group, then called the Sunday Sketch Walk, slowly grew to be renamed the Urban Sketchers in 2016, under a global banner with 1,300 members now part of the Mumbai Facebook Group.

Every Sunday, over a dozen artists, doctors, bankers, and illustrators gather at a predefined spot and sketch. Some are passionate enough to arrive in the morning with a water bottle and lunch, and continue sketching till 6 pm, laughs Dev.

Girish Malap, who has worked as an illustrator for some major brands, says while he would practice sketching at home he would feel confined. “I wanted to sketch landscapes,” he says. In January 2017, the 27-year-old went with the group on a Sunday. “In a year, I have never missed any Sunday to sketch with them. While I do get to practise, I also get to know the mindset of others. Everyone has his own style.”

Zainab Tambawalla agrees. An illustrator for children’s books, Tambawalla (42) says the idea is simple: to come together and sketch. “When we sketch in a group, we all look at a subject differently. Sometimes someone can spot something great in your sketch that you can’t.”

“But no one trains anyone. It is not a workshop,” she adds.

The illustrator says as an artist she is mostly able to do commercial jobs. “It becomes difficult to practise skills or explore beyond that.” Over weekends now, the Urban Sketchers choose a spot in the city and meet to sketch. “And there is no competition, every one is on their own journey to sketch,” Tambawalla says.

Since Urban Sketchers is also a global group, several get a chance to meet the larger sketching community. Tambawalla went to Portugal to participate in a four-day sketching event in Porto where 800 people came together to sketch through the day.

Usually in Mumbai, a group of eight to 15 gathers to sketch. In their trip to Elephanta caves, that marked their 100th sketching expedition, 17 people joined. Some drew the gigantic caves, some chose to capture a stone carved statue, and some drew the tourists that throng Elephanta on Sundays.

Banker Abhishek D S (31) has had an inclination towards art for long. “I wanted to explore a place, not through the camera, but as an artist.”

The Airoli resident spends his first half of every Sunday sketching. It has become a habit now, he smiles. “My parents stay in Chennai. I am so used to this that I now travel with my sketchbook,” he says.

Several amateurs have taken to sketching through this group. Founder Dev says he had to push beginners coaxing them that in group, one can draw courage to sketch publicly.

“For freshers it can be intimidating if some one looks over your shoulder to see what you are drawing,” he says.