Workshop 1 – Chicago Simplified

I’m an urban sketcher and watercolour artist based in Barcelona.

After several years working as a graphic designer in different countries, I began sketching as a way to document the places I visited. That practice gradually became central to my creative life.

Some of my most favorite experiences came from walking and painting El Camino de Santiago. Those summers set me on a path toward dedicating more and more time to drawing, travel, and on-location painting.

Today, I work full-time as an urban sketcher, traveling, drawing, and teaching workshops. I continue to be inspired by Barcelona—the city where I was born—always discovering new places to paint. I have taught at the Urban Sketchers International Symposiums in Auckland and Buenos Aires, as well as at the 2023 and 2024 USK Symposiums. I also teach ongoing workshops at Casa Vicens in Barcelona, group workshops, and most recently at Compostela Ilustrada 2025.

Being part of the Urban Sketchers international community is a constant source of inspiration. Teaching and learning alongside other sketchers allows me to share what I’ve learned over the years while continuing to grow as an artist. My first symposium as a participant was in Porto—an experience that inspired me to make urban sketching my career.

You can find my watercolors of Barcelona and other cities at:
Web: www.danielpagans.com
Instagram: @danielpagans

Workshop 2 – The Mighty Complementary Watercolors

Darman was born in Bima, Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia, in 1970. Now he lives in Surabaya. As an architect, he has designed and built mostly private residential projects for the last three decades.

In 2011, he started a new hobby, Urban Sketching, which has since evolved into a serious endeavour. Urban Sketching involves sketching on location and has become a global community phenomenon. He co-founded Urban Sketchers Surabaya on May 12, 2013. Actively build connection to numerous other sketching communities, his sketchworks get more and more recognitions and appreciations. Some of his works are featured in sketching books (they are also included in several of Urban Sketchers handbooks too).

He usually works on watercolour paper with the mix of pens, inks, Chinese ink, watercolour, and sometimes graphite pencil and pastels.
After 2020 he was focusing on developing watercolour skills further, searching ways to capture moods in wet on wet washes techniques.

Darman has been a sketching instructor at numerous international, regional, and local Urban Sketching Events since 2014. And recently he is also appointed as Brand Ambassador of Stillman & Birn sketchbooks since 2021, and Blockx Watercolor in 2026.

Most of his sketches are closely related to all about architecture and the city : old buildings, urban settings, and other daily activities.

Find Darman:
Instagram: @darman_sketcher
Facebook: darman.angir

Workshop 3 – Sketch Like Theater: Show Less, Tell More

Pedro Loureiro is an architecture illustrator from Lisbon, Portugal. He began his artistic journey as a child by copying his favorite comic book panels—an early passion for characters and storytelling that still drives his sketching today. During architecture school, he took drawing classes and soon joined the Urban Sketchers community, which became a key part of his creative path into the professional art world.

Pedro loves sketching people. Over the years, he’s filled countless sketchbooks at dinner parties, bars, and family gatherings, creating vivid records of the people and moments that shaped those occasions. His preferred tools are ink pens, because “there’s no going back”—a philosophy of embracing mistakes and learning from them—and watercolor because of its portability, expressive, unpredictable nature, and of how it almost works on its own.

Pedro uses sketching not just as a visual practice, but as a tool for perception—an active way of seeing and understanding places, people, and everyday life. His teaching centers on helping others realize that everyone can learn to draw, and that drawing changes how we see.

He teaches sketching workshops regularly, and shares stories on his blog Storysketching and with Urban Sketchers Portugal. He was a regular contributor to Drawing Attention, the monthly USk zine, and has been involved with the Urban Sketchers community almost from the start—teaching, organizing events, and leading workshops across the world. Pedro also leads The Wedding Sketchers, an event live sketching initiative. “By sketching, we see the world in a novel way, and each sketch we do is a story that we tell back to the world.”

Find Pedro:
Website: storysketching.com
Instagram: @pedromacloureiro

Workshop 4 – Urban Sketching with Gouache

Christina Wald is a designer, illustrator, and educator. She has illustrated more than 70 picture books worldwide and wrote Sketching Here & Everywhere: My Sketching Obsession, a blend of personal anecdotes and sketching exercises developed with her students.

A passionate traveler and urban sketcher, she published a travelogue about her residency at Château d’Orquevaux in 2023, followed by one about Romania in 2025, and is completing one about Argentina coming out in 2026. She founded Urban Sketchers Cincinnati in 2017 and serves as Social Media Coordinator for the international Urban Sketchers organization. She has led sketching workshops in Italy, Seattle, Romania, Costa Rica, and Ohio.

Picture book highlights include several books for the San Diego Zoo, including its official centennial children’s book and titles for the U.S. Forest Service/Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, American Prairie Reserve, and Kew Gardens in London. She regularly illustrates for a Swiss publisher including books by yodeling star Melanie Oesch and a book celebrating the Miracle of Bern for the Young Boys FC. Her most recent release is Denni-Jo and Pinto at the Rodeo by Buck Buchanan.

Wald taught illustration and narrative storytelling for over a decade at Art Academy of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky University, where she is recognized as an award-winning educator.

Find Christina:
Website: christinawald.blogspot.com
Instagram: @christinawald_art
Facebook: ChristinaWaldIllustration

Workshop 5 – K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Sketcher!) with Jingo De La Rosa

Jingo M. de la Rosa is an independent illustrator, art educator, community artist, and urban sketcher with a career spanning 12 years. He has created art for renowned organizations such as the NBA, the NCAA, ‘47 Brand Apparel, The Houston Symphony, and Sakura of America. Jingo is a native of Manila, Philippines; but now calls Indianapolis his home.

Jingo has always enjoyed sketching, but he didn’t discover Urban Sketchers until 2014 when he lived in Chicago. His very first meetup with the Chicago chapter was in the University of Chicago, where he saw the value of being in community with other people who enjoy sketching. That experience inspired him to dig deeper into the communal aspect of art and sketching. Today, he is one of the regional administrators for Urban Sketchers Indianapolis, a chapter that’s approaching its 10th year in 2027. Jingo also helps lead local community organizations in Indianapolis such as CreativeMornings, where he seeks to cultivate his city’s creative community.

Jingo has taught in different capacities as an educator. He has facilitated workshops for all ages around the state of Indiana through different grants and non-profits. He has also created educational videos about sketching for both Sakura of America and Etchr Labs. Recently, Jingo was an adjunct professor for both Herron School of Art & Design and Butler University, where he taught all levels of drawing and illustration for 5 years.

Jingo’s last workshop with Urban Sketchers Chicago was in the 2019 summer seminar, and he’s beyond excited to be back this year!

Find Jingo:
Website: jingodlr.com
Instagram: @jingoillo

Workshop 6 – The Visual Souvenir: Sketching Memories a Camera Can’t Capture

Amy is a passionate local and global urban sketcher dedicated to capturing the world one sketch at a time. With a sketchbook always in hand, she finds beauty in the everyday—from the high-energy cityscapes of Chicago, New Orleans, and Miami to the quiet, sun-drenched corners of the Adirondacks, Utah, Panama, Greece, Croatia, and Mexico. Her vast portfolio spans the Americas and Europe, documenting solo adventures and group travels across Buenos Aires, Italy, Costa Rica, and beyond.

Using a blend of ink and watercolor, Amy focuses on telling visual stories of place and presence. As an experienced instructor, she has led numerous classes, sharing a core philosophy: sketching is for everyone. She believes that a sketchbook is more than a collection of drawings; it is a record of a life lived with open eyes.

Her teaching style prioritizes the calming, mindful nature of the practice. Amy encourages her students to shift their focus away from “perfect” performance and toward deep observation and personal experience. Whether you are sketching in your own neighborhood or a bustling foreign plaza, Amy provides the tools to help you embrace the process, find confidence and your creative voice, and celebrate the world exactly as it is.

Workshop 7 – Best of Line and Color: Pen and Watercolor for Urban Sketching

Born in Seoul, Korea, Don Yang came to the United States in his late teens. After 7 years of service in the U.S. Army, he decided to pursue his childhood dream of living as an artist by attending American Academy of Art in Chicago where he earned a BFA with honors and later an MFA with emphasis on fine art and traditional illustration. After graduating from the Academy, Don has taught figure drawing, oil painting, and anatomy at the American Academy of Art for 23 years and served as chairperson of Fine Arts Department and Foundations Department.

As an active member of Urban Sketchers Chicago since 2012, Don has previously taught workshops for USk Chicago Seminar; Oil Painting in Urban Sketching and Urban Sketching in Gouache. He also frequently teaches urban sketching workshops and classes for numerous art organizations such as Old Town Art Center, Water Street Studios and ICAA (Institute of Classical Architecture and Art). He currently teaches oil painting, watercolor painting, drawing fundamentals, and fundamentals of art at Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, Old Town Art Center, and in his studio at the historic Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago. An avid sketcher and plein air painter, working both outdoors and in his studio, he frequently exhibits his work both locally and nationally.

Find Don:
Instagram: @donyangart
Facebook: don.yang.39

Workshop 8 – Color Pencil Techniques for Dramatic Effect with Mark Jones

I am an architect in Chicago with 40 years of urban sketching experience. Learning and practicing sketching was required in architecture school at the University of Illinois at Chicago and students were encouraged and required to maintain sketchbooks during our classes, filling them with design ideas, sketches, class notes, inspiration, and urban sketching. A study abroad program in 1986-1987 based in Versailles, France provided the focus to document my travels and studies through Europe. I have continued the practice of urban sketching since and continue to work on my techniques. I have been fortunate to participate in several art shows exhibiting my sketches and gain inspiration from those to continue drawing and sketching. I joined Urban Sketchers Chicago in 2014 and have participated or taught or both at each of the USk Chicago Seminars. I am active in Urban Sketchers Chicago and the EveryOther sketch group.

Find Mark:
Instagram: @markjones4125

Workshop 9 – From Simple Sketches to Masterpieces

Kelly is a Chicago-based artist whose creative practice began with Urban Sketchers, where drawing on location taught her to slow down, observe with intention, and embrace the unexpected. At one of the Urban Sketchers symposiums, she met her longtime teacher Ingrid, whose mentorship shaped the foundation of Kelly’s artistic development and encouraged her to explore both discipline and play in her work.

Primarily a watercolor painter, Kelly also works extensively with mixed-media collage and experimental printing techniques such as monotype, suminagashi, and gelli printing. These processes allow her to push beyond traditional watercolor, exploring design, abstraction, and expressive mark-making through layered, iterative experimentation. She draws inspiration from poetry, music, and dance, often translating rhythm, movement, and emotional tone into visual form.

Kelly’s artworks have been included in juried exhibitions at the Ormond Art Museum, Evanston Art Center, Bridgeport Art Center, and Northshore Art League to name a few. She is a Signature Member of the International Society of Experimental Artists.

In both her studio practice and teaching, Kelly is committed to creating a safe, enjoyable environment where artists can explore freely, take risks, and discover what resonates with them. She believes that small, exploratory sketches are powerful tools for uncovering personal voice and strengthening design decisions.

Find Kelly:
Website: kellyzeng.art
Instagram: @kellyzengart
Facebook: kellyzengart

Workshop 10 – Of Ink and Wash

Dave has worked as a professional Landscape Architect in the Chicago area for over 25 years. Sketching has always been a key part of his job, as it ensures clear communication of schematic designs. In the last couple of year his sketching skills have been parlayed into a new position in which he is the go-to artist for all his firm’s projects. He has filled countless sketchbooks with thousands of outdoor sketches done over three decades of travel, work, and everyday observations.

He has a keen eye for observing the built and natural world around him, and loves to capture those scenes with pencil, pen, and wash. He is enthusiastic about sharing his insights about sketching with others and loves to see other artists work in their own expressive individual style.

A lifelong love of comic books gave him a passion for the various illustrators who were key to deft ink-work over the last one hundred years. From Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo; to Jack Kirby’s Hulk; to Massimo Belardinelli, Carlos Ezquerra and Brian Bolland’s work in UK’s 2000AD. Dave is also a skilled illustrator, focusing on the flora and fauna around us, and has recently been trying his hand at caricature and portraiture.

Workshop 11 – Are You Pastel-Curious?

Shabad Kaur Khalsa, originally trained as a graphic designer, is now an art therapist, marriage and family therapist, and yoga teacher. She exercises her artistic passion with soft pastels, as she finds in this medium the perfect marriage of her love for drawing with the immediacy of rich colors without the brushes or solvents of oil paints.

Shabad Kaur considers drawing and painting as a form of a spiritual practice; a love letter to nature to take a ‘sacred pause’ to document something and then finding a way to express the love she feels for that subject matter so that others may enjoy that and create a shared experience of witnessing and deeply seeing.
“All authentic art is conceived at a sacred moment and nourished in a blessed hour; an inner impulse creates it, often without the artist being aware of it.” (Caspar David Friedrich)

“Life is sacred. Life is art. Life is sacred art. The art of sacred living means being a holy actor, acting from the soul rather than the ego. The soul is out of space and time and hence always available, an ever-present potential of our being. It is up to each of us to celebrate and to actualize our being and to turn each meal, conversation, outfit, letter, and so on, into art. Every mundane activity is an opportunity for full authentic self-expression. The soul is our artistic self, our capacity for transforming every dimension of our lives into art and theater.” (Gabrielle Roth)

Find Shabad:
Website: shabadkaur.com
Facebook: Shabad Kaur Khalsa

Workshop 12 – Reportage and the Energy of the Crowd

Joel Berman champions freehand sketching as an essential tool for conceptual design, embracing its speed and intimacy to translate ideas quickly and clearly. He has spent years sharing this passion as a frequent educator for professional associations across Canada (including the Royal Architect’s Institute of Canada and the Ontario and Alberta Associations of Architects). Joel also instructs at Urban Sketchers Chicago and Urban Sketcher Nagpur (India). His teaching legacy includes instructing dozens of primary school teachers for the Chicago Architecture Foundation – National Endowment of the Humanities Landmark Series on how to foster visual literacy in their students. His sketches, drawn with a keen architectural eye, aim to show the immediate, emotional truth found in the world around us.

A self-proclaimed “River Rat,” Joel lives on the Chicago River, which serves as a constant muse and backdrop for his artwork. He actively explores this unique urban ecosystem through kayaking, rowing crew with the Chicago Rowing Foundation, and dragon boat racing with the Greater Chicagoland Dragon Boat Club. His deep engagement with the river’s life and evolving landscape directly informs the lines and shadows of his creative work.

Joel is the founder and president of Berman Design, a nationally recognized Chicago-based architecture firm specializing in retail, hospitality, and restaurant design. Joel’s expertise encompasses hospitality, retail franchise prototypes, commercial kitchens, and adaptive reuse projects.

Find Joel:
Website: BermanSketching.com
Instagram: bermansketching

Workshop 13 – Let’s Figure It Out

I participate in many live-model art sessions throughout the Chicago area and imagined that the figure-drawing skills could be directly transferrable to Urban Sketching scenery and environments. There’s always a frequent opportunity to make figures the primary subject or add them into the scene of a sketch as an accessory element. Since I do a good amount of figure drawing, going back to my art-school training at the American Academy of Art, I have a good knowledge-base of experience both in years of study, as well as a nice variety of mediums that Urban Sketching might use.
I can imagine that people-sketching could be a daunting subject to tackle for a beginner or even an experienced sketcher who may not do figures regularly enough to be in practice. People subjects are an endless source of interest for me and I always search out ways to include them where possible to add interest and vitality to an Urban Sketch.

Workshop 14 – Primed for Play: Gelli Prints as a Starting Point for Sketching

Tina Tang is a multidisciplinary artist and urban sketcher whose work explores city life, memory, and human connection. Working with watercolor, ink, and mixed media, she captures fleeting moments through expressive gesture, movement, and narrative-driven scenes. Tina primarily sketches on location, balancing careful observation with spontaneity and embracing imperfection as part of the storytelling process.

She began sketching in Chicago, where drawing the city became a daily practice of seeing and slowing down. After moving to New York City, she became deeply involved in the NYC Urban Sketchers community, facilitating workshops, guiding live sketching sessions, and serving as a volunteer organizer. Tina has been sketching for over seven years, maintaining an extensive sketchbook practice documenting cities including Chicago, New York City, Hawaii, and beyond. Her work can be found at tinasketchbook.com.

Her work has been exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center and Palette and Chisel Art Academy, and she has participated in live sketching events with organizations such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art and New York Fashion Week. She also creates private commissions focused on visual storytelling and memory.

Outside of her art practice, Tina works full time as a risk manager, a role that informs her teaching through thoughtful structure, clear communication, intention, and workshop design.

Find Tina:
Website: tinasketchbook.com