My New Urban Sketching Website

Those people who followed the links from my post about the my mad week in Manchester will have already seen my new website, but I thought I ought to tell you about it properly, as I am rather excited by how it looks. This is the homepage. When you go to the real thing, the top section moves:

Regular readers will have noticed that I have been doing as much urban sketching work as book illustration. That is definitely what's been getting me excited of late and an area I want to expand. Until this month though, my website has been all about children's books. It's still working great for that side of things and is perfect for helping with school visits, so I don't want to change it, but it's no good for potential clients for my new reportage projects. Which is why I got someone to help build me a 2nd website at www.lynnechapman.net

This site features all the different aspects of my work where I am painting and drawing from life. It's perfect for showcasing the artist-in-residence work at the Morgan Centre, as well as letting people know that I am also available to create a visual record of any sort of event. I've already covered conferences, but it would be interesting to get involved in non-academic events too: imagine a sketch-record of farming processes, or the manufacture and launch of a new product... Pretty much anything is possible and I am sure there is a market for such projects. It's just letting people know that I am here!

I'd like to do more workshops centred around teaching people to sketch too, as well as more public speaking about what I do. I love to talk about it! I needed somewhere to separated out workshops of that kind from my children's illustration workshops. I deliberately featured photos of adults, to get the point across that it doesn't have to happen in schools. I'd love to be attached to a big institution and offer an afternoon of drawing for staff once a month, like some businesses subsidise yoga, to help with mindfulness and relaxation.

I now have somewhere to gather all my films about drawing together too, rather than mixing them in with the ones about illustration and the films for kids. 

I will soon be able to include the brand new film the university commissioned, which was on show at the exhibition.

This new website is a much more relevant home for my sketchbooks too. I've simplified the archive down, so it's easier to find what you are interested in, organising it by subject matter categories:

There are all the usual links available of course, so do use this part of the website to join me in other places, if you haven't already. I was quite pleased with the idea of creating a footer section for the links, from a scan of one of my sketchbooks:

I've included a big section explaining about what Urban Sketchers is, who Urban Sketchers Yorkshire are and what SketchCrawling is all about. Hopefully it will help recruit a few more people to the cause:

Have a wander round and let me know what you think. It would be good to know if you find any glitches or things which are missing. Hope you like it!