LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT DEAR URBAN SKETCHERS, THE YEAR 2019 WAS BIG FOR URBAN SKETCHERS WITH MANY MILESTONES, MEMORIES, AND SUCCESSFUL EVENTS...
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n February, the board of Urban Sketchers gathered in San José, Costa Rica, for our annual board meeting. In addition to planning for the coming year(s), the board participated in public events hosted by Urban Sketchers Costa Rica. The workshops, lectures, and sketchwalks reached over 100 people and allowed us to introduce sketching to the children of Pueblito, a local orphanage. You can see a wonderful video about the sketchwalks and read a recap of the event in the April edition of Drawing Attention. The weekend was a warm welcome to new sketchers and embodied our manifesto to celebrate our unique styles and to support one another as we draw together. As ever, our educational offerings remain world class, with workshops spanning the globe and culminating in the 10th Urban Sketchers International Symposium, held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in July. The Symposium was attended by 705 registered participants and offered 36 phenomenal workshops and 6 lectures on techniques, history, sketching adventures, and how to organize an Urban Sketchers chapter; and a high-quality market of art materials from our sponsors. To celebrate our 10th Symposium, for the first time ever, Symposium sketchwalks were free and open to the public. Our final 4 2019 ANNUAL REPORT
group photo shows over 1200 sketchers gathered together to celebrate this amazing practice called urban sketching. Milestones: Shortly after the record-setting attendance at the 10th Urban Sketchers International Symposium, we passed the 200,000 followers mark on Instagram in August. Urban Sketchers added 19 new regional chapters bringing our total to 303 chapters in 57 countries globally. The support from the Urban Sketchers community in 2018 made possible the Community Workshop Grant Program. Three grants were awarded in 2019 for Urban Sketchers instructors to partner with regional chapters and not-for-profit organizations to share the excitement and impact of on-location drawing. In 2020 we’ll be awarding five more grants. If you’re moved to support this special program, you can do so here. In November 2019, Urban Sketchers, in collaboration with the Urban Sketchers Hong Kong chapter, made the difficult decision to cancel the 11th Urban Sketchers International Symposium due to political unrest in Hong Kong. Urban Sketchers will be supporting regional events