Your First Sketchcrawl: Everything You Need to Know Before You Go
By Dalton Scolman
A sketchcrawl is what it sounds like: a group of people with sketchbooks moving through a location together, stopping to sketch at multiple spots across a few hours, and finishing with a show and tell where everyone shares their work. It is one of the best things about the urban sketching community. It is also one of the most intimidating events to walk into for the first time.
The intimidation fades quickly. This guide explains what to expect, how to find one, what to bring, how the day actually runs, and a few things that will make your first sketchcrawl considerably more enjoyable than going in blind.
What a Sketchcrawl Actually Is
The term was coined by Enrico Casarosa, a Pixar director, who organized the first global SketchCrawl in 2004. The concept is simple: pick a location, gather sketchers, move through it over a few hours, sketch what you see. The social element is as important as the sketching. You are not attending a class or being evaluated. You are spending a day with other people who like making marks on paper.
Urban Sketchers, the global nonprofit organization founded in 2007, runs thousands of these events through local chapters in cities around the world. Most chapters organize at least one sketchcrawl per month. Some are large gatherings of fifty or more people. Others are small groups of four or five meeting at a neighborhood cafe. The format adapts to the city and the organizers, but the basic structure is consistent: a meeting point, a loose plan for where to sketch, and a gathering at the end to share work.
The most important thing to know before your first sketchcrawl: nobody cares how good your sketches are. The community is genuinely welcoming to beginners. The people who show up have usually experienced their own first sketchcrawl and remember what it felt like to be new. The only qualification for attending is that you want to sketch.
How to Find a Sketchcrawl Near You
The most reliable way is through the Urban Sketchers chapter finder at UrbanSketchers.org. Search by your city or region and you will find the local chapter's page, which typically links to their social media group or event calendar. Most chapters run their events through Facebook groups, Meetup, or Instagram.
A few things worth knowing before you go:
Most sketchcrawls have no fee and no registration requirement. You just show up at the meeting point at the listed time. The meeting point is often a landmark, a cafe entrance, or a specific corner. Arrive a few minutes early so you can find the group before they move off.
If you cannot find an official chapter, look for informal sketching groups through Instagram hashtags for your city. Many active sketching communities exist outside the official Urban Sketchers structure and are equally welcoming.
The Urban Sketchers International Symposium is the largest gathering in the world and takes place in a different city each year. The 2026 Symposium is in Toulouse, France in July. It includes workshops, demonstrations, and sketchcrawls across the city over four days. For anyone who wants to immerse themselves in the community at the highest level, the Symposium is the event to know about.
What the Day Looks Like
Most local sketchcrawls follow a similar structure, though the specifics vary by chapter and location.
The meet-up. You arrive at the starting point. There are usually introductions, sometimes brief and casual, sometimes more organized depending on the chapter's style. The organizer explains where the group plans to sketch and roughly how long each stop will run. For a half-day crawl, this might be two or three stops over three to four hours. For a full-day crawl, it might be four to six stops with a lunch break in the middle.
The sketching stops. At each location, the group disperses to sketch. People choose their own spots, their own subjects, their own approach. Nobody tells you what to draw or how long each sketch should take. The time at each stop is usually announced by the organizer, and the group moves on together when it is up. Some stops are very short, fifteen to twenty minutes, which means whatever you produce in that window is what you have. Others are longer, forty-five minutes to an hour, which allows more developed work.
The show and tell. At the end of the crawl, everyone gathers and opens their sketchbooks. Each person shares what they made during the day. This is the part that feels most intimidating to beginners and most enjoyable to experienced sketchers. The atmosphere is supportive and genuinely curious. People ask questions, share observations, compliment what they find interesting. The goal is not critique. It is the pleasure of seeing how different people saw the same places.
What to Bring: Kit for a Full Day
A sketchcrawl is a different environment from a solo session at a cafe. You are moving between multiple locations, often on foot, carrying everything you need for a full day of sketching. The kit that works for a comfortable studio session may not be the kit that works at the fourth stop of a sketchcrawl when your bag has been on your shoulder for three hours.
The principle is the same one that applies to all location sketching: lighter is better, and anything that requires a stable flat surface to use is a liability when you might be sketching standing on a narrow pavement or sitting on a low wall.
Sketchbook. One sketchbook, A5 size or smaller. Some experienced crawlers bring two, one for detailed work and one for quick gesture sketches at fast stops. One is enough for a first crawl. Choose a spiral-bound or hardbound journal with 140lb watercolor paper. The hard cover provides its own backing surface, which matters when there is no table.
Ink. One or two waterproof fineliners in your preferred sizes. A fountain pen with waterproof ink if that is your preference. Resist the urge to bring your entire pen collection. The pens you reach for on every sketch are the only pens you need.
Paint. This is the most important kit decision for a sketchcrawl, and it deserves more thought than most guides give it.
A full pan palette requires a flat surface to rest on and a water jar to operate. On a sketchcrawl where you might be sketching standing up, on a wall, on a curb, or in a crowd, neither of those things is guaranteed. A spilled water jar at the third stop of the day is a real event that ruins the sketchbook, the mood, and sometimes the session.
The Peerless Sidekick solves this specific problem. It fits in a jacket pocket or a small bag pocket, sits in your non-drawing hand while you paint with the other, requires no water jar, and activates instantly the moment a wet brush touches it. At a fast stop where you have fifteen minutes and no stable surface, this format is the difference between a productive sketch and a frustrating one.
Paired with a water brush, the complete painting setup for a sketchcrawl is two objects. Everything else is in the sketchbook.
The Peerless Sidekick and a water brush is the combination that experienced crawlers tend to converge on once they have done enough crawls to know what the day actually demands.
Water brush. One water brush, filled before you leave in the morning. No jar. No separate water source. One squeezes of the handle and water reaches the tip. A paper towel folded in your pocket is your rinse.
Paper towel or small cloth. A few folded squares. Weighs nothing. Handles brush rinsing and any minor paint accidents.
Something to sit on, maybe. A small folding stool is useful for longer stops if you know the terrain. It is not essential and adds weight. For a first crawl, leave it at home and see whether standing or finding a wall or bench works well enough. If you decide you want a stool, buy one before the next crawl.
Food and water. Sketchcrawls often run through mealtimes. Bring a snack and a water bottle. Most chapters stop at a cafe for a midpoint break, but this is not always guaranteed.
The Social Side: What to Expect
Walking into a group of strangers with a sketchbook is uncomfortable for most people the first time. A few things help.
The shared activity removes most of the social pressure. At a sketchcrawl, everyone is focused on sketching. Conversation happens naturally around that shared focus rather than requiring anyone to carry it artificially. You talk about what you are looking at, what you are trying to capture, how the light is changing. These conversations arise easily and do not require small talk skills.
You do not need to show anyone your sketchbook during the day if you do not want to. The show and tell at the end is where sharing happens, and even then nobody is compelled to participate. That said, most people who attend sketchcrawls are genuinely interested in seeing what others made, and the experience of opening your sketchbook alongside twenty other open sketchbooks is usually more enjoyable than intimidating. Everyone's work looks different. Everyone's approach to the same location is different. That variety is the point.
If you sketch something you are not pleased with, open the sketchbook anyway. Experienced sketchers have bad sessions too, and the work that looks least successful to you often looks most interesting to someone else who approached the same subject differently.
Managing a Full Day of Sketching
A full-day sketchcrawl involves more sustained attention than most solo sessions. A few things make the long day work better.
Accept the fast stops. At a fifteen-minute stop, you are not going to produce a finished sketch. You are going to capture something. A color impression, a strong shape, the character of a doorway. This is enough. The best sketchcrawl pages often come from fast stops where the time pressure forced a decisive, unworked mark rather than a careful, considered composition.
Vary your approach across the day. If you spend every stop trying to do the same thing, a detailed ink drawing with color washes, the day becomes repetitive and tiring. Use some stops for color-only exploration, some for quick gesture marks, some for the more developed work that a longer stop allows. This variation keeps the day interesting and produces a more varied sketchbook page at the end.
Do not skip a stop because you do not like the location. The locations that seem least interesting often produce the most unexpected sketches. A car park, an unremarkable street corner, a view looking away from the interesting building: these constraints force creative problem-solving that more obviously beautiful locations do not. Some of the most experienced urban sketchers deliberately seek out unpromising subjects.
Talk to people during the sketching stops, not just at the show and tell. Walking over to look at someone else's sketch in progress, with genuine curiosity, is always welcomed. Asking what they chose to focus on and why, comparing how you each positioned yourself relative to the subject, discussing what the light is doing: these conversations are what the community is made of, and they happen naturally at the sketchbook.
Show and Tell: How to Handle It
Show and tell is the final gathering where everyone shares their day's work. For a first-time attendee, this can feel like the most exposing moment of the event. It almost always turns out to be the most enjoyable.
A few things that help.
You do not need to explain or justify what you made. Opening the sketchbook and letting people look is enough. If you want to say something, the simplest approach is to describe what you were trying to capture at each stop rather than evaluating whether you succeeded. "I was trying to get the color of the shadow on those stone walls" is more interesting than "this one didn't really work."
Ask questions about other people's work rather than offering assessments. "What made you choose this angle?" or "what happened with the color here?" generate more interesting conversation than any amount of praise or critique.
The best show and tell conversations are about observation: what you noticed, what surprised you, what the place offered that you had not expected. These conversations are genuinely enriching and they are much easier to have after a day of shared attention to the same locations.
What to Sketch at a Sketchcrawl
One practical problem that beginners hit at sketchcrawls is choice paralysis: the group stops at a location and everyone disperses to find their spot, and the beginner stands in the middle trying to decide where to go and what to sketch.
A simple decision process helps. Ask these three questions in order.
What is the most interesting light right now? Find where the shadow is most dramatic, or where warm afternoon light is hitting a surface in a way that will change in ten minutes. That light is your starting point.
What can I see from there that fits my available time? A fifteen-minute stop calls for a simpler subject than a forty-five-minute one. Pick something whose essential character you can capture in the time available.
Is there a good place to stand or sit that gives me a clear view? Comfort matters over a full day. A cramped or uncomfortable position produces worse sketches than a slightly less ideal view from a comfortable spot.
These three questions answered in under thirty seconds will get you sketching faster than any amount of deliberation about the perfect subject.
After the Crawl: What to Do With the Sketchbook
The Urban Sketchers community shares work online extensively. Instagram is the primary platform, with hashtags for local chapters as well as the global community. If you are comfortable sharing your work, posting from a sketchcrawl connects you with other sketchers far beyond the group you sketched with in person.
The chapter organizer may also photograph or document the group's work for the chapter's social media. This is usually flagged during the show and tell and participation is always optional.
If the crawl was your first, let yourself look at the sketchbook a day later before evaluating it. Work seen immediately after a session often looks worse than the same work seen the following morning. The distance is genuinely useful.
FAQ
What is a sketchcrawl? A sketchcrawl is a group urban sketching event where participants move together through a location, stopping at multiple spots to sketch, and finish with a show and tell where everyone shares their work. The format was pioneered by Enrico Casarosa and has been adopted by the global Urban Sketchers community, which organizes thousands of sketchcrawls through local chapters in cities around the world. There is no fee to attend most sketchcrawls and no skill level requirement.
How do I find an urban sketching group near me? The Urban Sketchers chapter finder at UrbanSketchers.org lets you search by location. Most chapters announce events through Facebook groups or Instagram. Many chapters also have Meetup pages. If there is no official chapter in your area, searching Instagram for your city name plus "urban sketching" or "sketchcrawl" will often surface informal groups that operate outside the official structure.
What should I bring to my first sketchcrawl? A small sketchbook with watercolor paper, one or two waterproof fineliners, a compact paint kit, a water brush, a small cloth for brush rinsing, food and water for the day. Keep the kit light because you will be carrying it for several hours and moving between locations. A format that does not require a flat surface or a water jar, like Peerless DryColor sheets with a water brush, is significantly more practical across a full sketchcrawl day than a traditional palette and jar setup.
What if my sketches are not good enough for show and tell? Nobody at a sketchcrawl is evaluating skill level. The show and tell is a shared viewing of what everyone saw and made during the same day in the same locations. Seeing how differently twenty people approached the same subject is the point, and that variety is most interesting when it includes beginners alongside experienced sketchers. Open the sketchbook. The conversation that comes from it will be more interesting than you expect.
What is the Urban Sketchers International Symposium? The Urban Sketchers International Symposium is the global community's annual gathering, held in a different city each year. It includes workshops, demonstrations, lectures, and sketchcrawls across the host city over four days. The 2026 Symposium is in Toulouse, France, July 15 to 18. It is the largest gathering of urban sketchers in the world and welcomes participants at all skill levels through both workshop passes and sketch-only passes.
Find Your Chapter and Go
The first sketchcrawl is the hardest one to walk into. After that, it becomes the thing you look forward to on the calendar.
Find your local chapter at UrbanSketchers.org. Show up at the meeting point. Sketch what you see. Open your sketchbook at the end.
For a kit that works across a full day of moving, sketching in different positions, and never needing a flat surface or a water jar, the Peerless Sidekick and a water brush is the combination the day calls for. Eight colors, instant activation, smaller than a passport holder. Ready the moment you stop walking and want to sketch.
Everything else you need is already in the sketchbook.