Why urban sketching retreats are taking off

Many travellers snap pictures during their trips, but others find that slowing down to illustrate a place helps them appreciate it in a more meaningful way.

Back in the 1800s, French artists like Eugène Louis Boudin and Claude Monet packed their paint brushes and set off on long excursions to capture the natural landscape – and in the process, revolutionised art as people knew it.

While painting outdoors on location has been around for roughly 200 years, the "en plein air" (open-air) art movement popularised by Boudin, Monet and others has recently inspired a newer trend: urban sketching. The term was coined by journalist and illustrator Gabriel Campanario in 2007 after he began sharing his drawn-on-the-spot work online and urged others to join in. This casual, free-spirited approach to en plein air art is often accompanied by text to tell the story of the artist's surroundings when they travel.

"Sketching on the go at different places around the globe… opens your eyes to everything from the obvious to the invisible. A sketch captures a memory of people and places in a way that a photograph never can," says Annette Morris, watercolour artist and education director at Urban Sketchers, a global community founded by Campanario that organises urban sketching walks, meet-ups and international trips for painting enthusiasts.

Morris has noticed that as people have become increasingly interested in more immersive travel experiences, there has been a notable rise in the number of people booking urban sketching retreats in the last few years. Since launching in 2009, Urban Sketchers has expanded to 477 cities in 70 countries, and it has opened more than 60 new chapters since the start of 2023.

Alex Hillkurtz, an urban sketcher living in Paris who leads painting workshops and retreats, believes drawing or painting on-location helps travellers slow down and experience a place in a different way.

"While travelling, there's a tendency to rush through bucket-list experiences. Urban sketching retreats allow us to step out of the hustle by creating something by hand," he explains. "As we draw, we notice the beauty in the ordinary: the way sunlight warms a scene, the comings and goings of locals in a market and the colours reflected in the water fountain."

I had long looked to bring my two biggest passions together – art and travel – and chronicle my encounters and experiences in a way that went beyond writing and photography. So, when I discovered urban sketching during the pandemic, I couldn't resist the idea of creating art in the open and slowing down to fully absorb a place and moment.

I went on my first urban sketching trip in 2023 with Painting Holiday Italy in Cinque Terre, a string of five coastal villages on the Italian Riviera. I remember feeling intimidated as I set up my easel and sketchbook inMonterosso al Mare's Borgo Antico (Old Town) that first morning surrounded by my instructor and fellow sketchers. However, with each brushstroke, I soon became more and more engrossed by the village's arched passageways, cobblestone streets, lemon trees and bougainvillaea-clad pastel houses. I found that when you stand still and spend hours absorbing and rendering the small details around you, you appreciate a place's nuances in a different way. As a result, at the end of the five-day retreat I returned home with a deeper appreciation for Ligurian cuisine, culture and architecture.  

In the following months, I sketched my way through India, Bhutan, Georgia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Seychelles; my constant companions were an A5 sketchpad, a pencil, fine-liner pens and a mini watercolour set.   

"As an art instructor, it's wonderful to see how each participant brings a fresh perspective to what's in front of them," says Alicia Aradilla, who has completed more than 700 watercolours from 20 countries and now leads urban sketching workshops and retreats. "Every sketchbook ends up being different; I find that incredibly appealing about sketching trips."

Here are some of my and my fellow urban sketchers' favourite travel moments rendered in watercolour, and the story behind each.

"A symbol of Bhutanese warmth and tradition" (Shikha Shah)

One evening in the capital city Thimpu, my local guide and friend Yeshi Samdrup suggested we enjoy a traditional Bhutanese meal at Babesa Village Restaurant, a 600-year-old home-turned-eatery. We were warmly greeted in Babesa's cosy, dimly-lit mud walls with ara, Bhutan's national alcoholic beverage that's often homebrewed by women from fermented or distilled grains. The beverage was poured from an exquisite jandhom, a barrel-shaped vessel decorated with intricately carved metal rings. Mesmerised by the beauty of the container, I opened my sketchbook to remind myself how Bhutan welcomes its guests by evoking its ancient traditions.

"Abode in the tropics" (Shikha Shah)

I recently spent three days surfing, meditating and practicing yoga at in Kerala, India. Driving through a peaceful lane on Varkala's South Cliff, we arrived at a 150-year-old building with a tiled-roof entrance, a veranda and courtyard surrounded by lush trees. The facade made a striking impression on me, so one afternoon, I created a pen-and-ink sketch of the elegant palm-fringed structure. Slowing down and focussing allowed me to notice architectural details I would have otherwise missed: the woodwork; the bird motifs on the roof; the chalky pink and blue of the doors and windows.

When I was back home, I finished it and posted some pictures of the artwork on my Instagram account. To my surprise, a woman replied, "Do you sell your sketches? I would love to buy this! I married my husband behind that gate. We miss it every single day."

"Colours of la dolce vita" (Shikha Shah)

As part of our five-day art retreat in Cinque Terre, we took an early morning train to Riomaggiore – the southernmost of the area's five villages. After strolling its many narrow streets, we arrived at a rocky harbour filled with boats and slender, three- and four-storey houses splashed in sunshine-yellow, rust and orange hues with distinct green-shutter windows. We found a serene spot on the rocks and spent a few hours capturing the scene on paper: fishermen cleaning the boats; nets drying in the sun; houses with empty clotheslines. Today, when I look through my Italy sketchbook, I walk right into the locations we painted together as a group, and feel the salty seaside air and the Mediterranean sun on my face. It is a time travel experience like no other.

"Hanoi's humble stamp-maker" (Shikha Shah)

The Old Quarter of Hanoi, Vietnam is a jumble of 36 narrow streets; each named after a guild whose craftsmen worked for royalty at the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long centuries ago. Today, this neighbourhood is still home to artisans striving to maintain ancient Vietnamese crafts. At the intersection of Hang Quat and Luong Van Can streets, I spotted a septuagenarian diligently hand-carving a wooden stamp, sitting in a tiny shop named Phuc Loi Stamp. I soon learned that the shop owner, Pham Ngoc Toan, had been practising his family's woodcarving trade for more than 40 years. I chose a red stamp symbolising happiness and handed it to him. As he began patiently engraving each letter in my name onto the stamp with a small chisel, I opened my sketchpad to draw him in action. While we didn't speak the same language, we silently bonded over our shared passion for art.

"A bit of Basque gastronomy" (Shikha Shah)

Basque cousin to the Spanish tapas, pintxos are bite-sized delicacies unique to Spain and France's Basque region. My friend and I grabbed a seat inside Bilbao's old-fashioned and atmospheric Café Iruña, ordered a variety of pintxos displayed on top of the bar and washed them down with a glass of txakoli (a slightly sparkling local white wine). As I drank, I managed to create a quick, rough sketch of the pintxos and txakoli.

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Another evening, we went bar hopping in Logroño’s main gastronomic street, Calle del Laurel. At Bar Soriano, we enjoyed the local speciality of mushrooms tossed in garlic butter, skewered onto a stick and topped with shrimp. Similarly, I felt compelled to pull out my sketchbook, the way another traveller might snap a picture with their phone. The simple act of illustrating allowed me to savour these treats a little longer, and their flavours have stayed with me ever since.

"The power of art" (Dan Johns)

For Dan Johns, a passionate urban sketcher based in Brisbane, Australia, his Vietnam art retreat hosted by Art Food Culture became a way to interact with local children and elders of remote Indigenous groups. "When you sit down to urban sketch, it shifts you from being an observer of a location to a part of it. Setting up to sketch the traditional housing in a remote village of the Cõ Tu people, I managed to befriend some local children by offering [them] some paints and a spare empty notebook. Soon, we were sketching together. After the spare paints were over, they politely packed up the gear and handed the finished notebook back to me. This little book filled with artistic chaos is one of my fondest souvenirs from the trip," says Johns.  

"A trip down memory lane" (John Skelcher)

John Skelcher has been conducting urban sketching retreats in Italy for more than 15 years and says that painting has helped him forge many unforgettable travel memories. "During my recent retreat in Venice, I organised a painting excursion to Burano when an old Italian lady and gentleman stood by and watched my watercolour demonstration to the group. I was so caught up in painting the scene that I barely noticed the tears trickling down her eyes. Once done with the demo, I asked the lady if she was okay to which she replied that watching us paint rekindled a childhood memory for her. Many years ago, she and her father stood at the same spot, observing another Englishman working with an easel; the man was none other than Winston Churchill. On asking if she had more to share about that day, she smiled broadly. 'Winston crossed that bridge and made a pee against that wall in the side alley there!' she said, and burst out laughing."

"From strangers to friends" (Astrid ten Bosch)

Dutch travel artist Astrid ten Bosch recently joined art educator Alán Ramiro's urban sketching retreat in Morocco. "Walking around a market in Marrakesh, I happened to strike up a conversation with a store owner about a beautiful carpet," she said. "When I asked him whether he was from Marrakesh, he explained that he was originally from a village in the Atlas Mountains; it was destroyed by the recent earthquake, which was why he'd moved to Marrakesh. Curious, I asked if his village was near Imlil and pulled out my sketchbook to show him a drawing I'd made of Imlil. He looked at it visibly moved, pointed at a mountain in my sketch and said, 'Wow! Did you create this? My village is just behind that mountain.' … It was an unexpected and beautiful connection, all sparked by a simple sketch."

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