Urban Sketching Books: Early Christmas Presents!

I've had a couple of lovely Christmas presents arrive through the post in the run up to the holiday. 

About a year ago I was asked if I would contribute my work to a couple of sketching books by fellow Urban Sketchers correspondents: Simone Ridyard from Manchester and Pete Scully, who is also a Brit, but who lives in California these days. 

I received complimentary copies of both books and they look fabulous - packed with information as well as gorgeous artwork by sketchers from around the world. I am honoured to be in such glorious company. This is a spread from Archisketcher featuring my painting of my neighbour's house: 

I have five pieces in Archisketcher. I was thrilled to bits that Simone used so many of my sketches. I am a big fan of her work, so am very happy to be included. She tackles complex architecture, but works very quickly, so her architecture is never stiff, but always vibrantly alive:

The two books are a little different in approach. Archisketcher concentrates on important aspects to consider when sketching architecture. It has detailed sections giving advice on perspective, style, choosing viewpoints, colour and composition. It is lavishly illustrated, both with Simone's own work and with a really diverse selection of top class artists. 

This is a sketch I did when feel very brave in Brazil, in the section on perspective:

This one is in a section looking at how to tackle interiors. It's a sketch I did in The Sheffield Tap pub, while on a sketchcrawl with my group. I was experimenting with 'drawing' in paint:

Pete Scully's Creative Sketching Workshop covers all sorts of different subjects for sketching. It is divided into 4 sections: Indoor Scenes, Outdoor Scenes, Buildings and People & Pets. These are all sub-divided into more specific subjects, each of which is presented by a different sketcher in that field, setting the reader exercises to try. 

So for instance, James Hobbs gives instruction on sketching waterside scenes. Pete himself does a section on sketching in bars, at which he is quite a master, and also on drawing objects which link into a series, like the delightful fire hydrant sketches for which he is so well known: 

I only have one sketch in Pete's book, in a section by Rita Sabler on drawing musicians, so I was quite surprised, and of course delighted, to get a freebie copy. 

I have been so busy, I have not had time yet to give either book the attention it deserves, but they are clearly going to be very interesting and inspirational. At £12.99 each they seem really good value too, as they are both chunky at 160 and 176 pages each. So, if nobody you know was kind enough to buy you one of these gorgeous books for Christmas, I think you deserve to treat yourself, don't you?