Hi, sketchers. I am Mario, a Portuguese living in Christchurch, New Zealand. I arrived in New Zealand about two years ago and started to sketch my new environment right away. The act of drawing makes me feel part of what surrounds me. If I draw, I see: if I see, I understand. This was my way of settling down.
I have been keeping a record of my surroundings since I was at college. Today I can say that my travel sketchbooks are the most precious objects I own. We write and draw in them, and they help us to remember places and situations, smells and sounds that we would never recall if we had only taken a photo.
Between me, my wife and my daughter, we are three sketchers, because usually if one of us is sketching, the others are either waiting or sketching as well. For Eva, aged seven, sketching is something all parents do, like cooking or driving.
What I like about posting sketches on the internet is being able to look at them as an outsider – this allows me to be the artist on site, and then the critic at home looking at the Urban Sketchers website.
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