Sketch crawl redraws Downtown

Pittsburgh Sketch Crawl

Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Second Saturday Workshop

Free to… Pittsburgh Sketch Crawl

Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Second Saturday Workshop

Free to participate — registration required

education@pgharts.org

412-471-6079

If an organized procession of people toting pencils and paper summons memories of art class, Pittsburgh might be a place of nostalgia for you Saturday..

The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Second Saturday Workshop will host the first-ever Pittsburgh Sketch Crawl this Saturday. Artists of all skill levels can sketch some of the city’s most scenic areas, including Katz Plaza, the Andy Warhol Bridge and Market Square.

Sonja Sweterlitsch, event planner and community art manager for the Second Saturday Workshop, said the goal of the event is to encourage any and all artists, be they studied pros or just people who like to doodle, to come out and be “creative together, meet other artists and depict the beauty of the city.”

Over the course of the day, artists will head to four different locations in the Downtown area, staying at each one for less than two hours. For the last hour, artists are encouraged to head to any area they choose and sketch what they see. Sketchers can choose to have their pieces shown in an exhibition during the Downtown First Night celebration on New Year’s Eve.

“These are excellent places to sit and draw,” Sweterlitsch said of the Downtown locations. “The scenery is varied and beautiful. There are many other great places to sit and draw Downtown as well — we will just have to have more Pittsburgh Sketch Crawls.”

Several professional artists will be there to assist sketchers with anything they need. Rick Antolic, a local artist and president of the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators, will lead the crawl, and illustrators Rhonda Libbey and Terry Boyd will be there to assist as well.

With its many different architectural styles, Downtown, at face level, doesn’t present a unified aesthetic. But Sweterlitsch thinks this variation is to the participants’ advantage.

“Downtown Pittsburgh has so many great places to draw,” she said. “From the beautiful magnolia-tree sculptures and the Louise Bourgeois sculptures at Katz Plaza to the colorful facades of Market Square and the regal spires of PPG.”

Sweterlitsch and Antolic said the Downtown area is ideal for an event like this because the locations are all very diverse but are all in close proximity to one another — a vital dynamic for a successful crawl.

“Pittsburgh is a ‘walking town.’ Regardless of whether people have an automobile or not, it seems everyone in Pittsburgh enjoys walking in and around the city. This allows smaller business, such as low-budget art galleries, to survive,” Antolic said.

Antolic added that the growing Pittsburgh art scene makes an event like this all the more feasible and interesting.

“Having a lot of small art galleries around town, combined with a few world-class museums, a nationally recognized annual Three Rivers Arts Festival and the various local colleges and universities that continue to nurture creative individuals that choose to stay in Pittsburgh all help to make Pittsburgh one of the most culturally and artistically diverse places in the country. Pittsburgh is home to such an eclectic blend of creative individuals,” Antolic said.

The event is not meant to not only showcase the talent of Pittsburgh artists and the beauty of the city itself but also to foster both a greater sense of civic pride and a greater awareness of the artistic community in the city.

“It is for artists of all levels. It’s really for anyone who has a good time drawing,” Sweterlitsch said. “We hope to get a good turnout with a lot of people drawing Downtown. It will be a good way for people who enjoy creating art to meet each other while being creative together in the same spaces.”