Pete Scully describes himself as an Urban Sketcher and avid keeper of Sketchbooks. Originally from Burnt Oak in North London, United Kingdom he now resides in Davis California, America. Originally it was his sketching style and his unusual selection of subject matter along with his viewing angles that appealed to my artistic curiosity. There was a sense of fun in his style of drawing along with his inclusion of odd characters within his sketches. He sketches both people that tend to be in group settings and places although it is his sketches of places that most appeal to me. He often has very different visual perspectives like showing buildings being demolished or under construction or those accidently storm damaged. It’s a sort of real time, take it as it is, sort of sketching along the lines of instant journalistic photography. He views his sketch books as being Visual Diaries so the same scene can change over time and particularly through the seasons.
Having been a follower for a number of years I have come
to also appreciate that Pete is an exceptional digital innovator. He has taken
his niche art segment and communicated it so well using a variety of digital
channels. It is his clever use of the digital medium that now appeals to me as
much as his artwork. He represents the classic example of a gifted artist doing
what he enjoys most whilst establishing ways of communicating his work to the
broadest possible audience. All this work is the output from a hobby since he
earns his living in full time employment.
In his use of digital resources the internet naturally
figures as his most important communications medium. But even here he has
almost adopted a simplistic approach similar to his style of artwork. He is
both an innovator in terms of his style of artwork but also he is an innovator
in the way he chooses to digitally communicate this artwork. But importantly he
is an artist not obsessed about copyright protection almost encouraging you to
print out and use his sketches. He comes across as someone not commercially
driven but just wanting his work enjoyed by everybody. This generosity to his
genuine followers is commendable whilst I hope he protects himself against
those who look to exploit his very unrestricted and open handed approach to
sharing his artwork.
Beyond the digital world and in terms of face to face he
has also been a keen enthusiast for supporting and organising so called “sketchcrawls”
where artists undertake a walk around specific agreed locations undertaking
group sketching at various stop off points. Although I suspect reading and
hearing some of his latest comments (2023) these consume too much of his
already limited time. Exhibitions would similarly prove good face to face
events offering the visitors the chance to see the sketches in their original
format but these are also demanding events to organise. I may be wrong but he
does not seem too commercially driven and does not appear to be actively
looking to sell his work.
But he has moved into publishing and selling books on
Urban Sketching and other art related subjects. He is active in promoting the
bigger community of likeminded Urban Sketchers both in California and the
United Kingdom and across the World. He also makes use of any other media
resources that report and further the public’s interest in Urban Sketching. He
has effectively used video resources to further his digital in roads into
communicating his world of Urban Sketching as well as projecting himself as an
individual. So as a very gifted artist he still has exceptionally broad
communication skills with in my experience these not always being common to one
individual. Artists tend to be introverted and communications people
extroverted is maybe too simplistic a statement but could be considered quite a
commonly held view. Whereas in Pete Scully case it would not be true since he
manages both extremely well.
The best way now is to get Pete Scully to introduce
himself through what I would term his Digital Knowledge Base. You can view both
his artistic and his digital communication capabilities by viewing these
internet links.
Flickr is an important internet website that acts as an excellent data repository for his work. It looks like he uses Flickr as his main storage repository for his work.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/petescully/
petescully.com
is
his own hosted website. Very significantly it under the Menu Option “Sketchbooks”
allows you to view every one of his sketchbooks starting from Sketchbook 1 in
2007 along with a variety of other sketchbooks. I particularly like “Great
Britain in sketches.” This looks to be another major digital repository for him.
Blogspot is used as a blogger application with me being an enthusiastic user of Google Blogspot always keen to see it being used this way. Blogspot has a very simple User Inferface (AX) and the way it is hosted it is super super fast.
http://urbansketchers-london.blogspot.com
Instagram. The normal use of Instagram. No narrative just pictures.
https://www.instagram.com/pwscully/
Twitter. The normal short narratives you associate with Twitter.
https://twitter.com/UrbSketchLondon
Facebook. This seems to be broken at present. Needs fixing.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/318585898339169/Facebook
