Urban Sketching Founder Gabriel Campanario Shares Secrets of Capturing City Life
The founder of the global Urban Sketchers movement, Gabriel Campanario, has shared insights into the art of capturing city life and information through sketching. Campanario, a Seattle-based journalist and artist, has revolutionized the way people perceive and record their surroundings.
Urban Sketching, as Campanario defines it, is about capturing situations and moods immediately, emphasizing authenticity and individual handwriting. It's a method that combines language and image to make thoughts, impressions, and stories visible by hand. Unlike Sketchnotes, which structure and organize information, Urban Sketching captures fleeting moments and atmospheres directly on location.
Both techniques, however, share a common visual language. They use a 'visual alphabet' consisting of five basic elements - point, line, triangle, square or rectangle, and circle - to create complex representations. Sketchnotes, in particular, employ keywords, simple shapes, icons, and structured layouts to condense information into clear visual structures. Campanario believes drawing slows down perception, filters relevant information, and creates small visual stories that support memory.
Campanario's methods, whether Urban Sketching or Sketchnotes, foster mindfulness and help beginners bundle thoughts and perceive what they see more consciously. By using simple techniques like creating visual hierarchies through size, contrast, and white space, and following a logical workflow, anyone can create meaningful visual representations of their experiences and ideas.
