Yomou Chan is a prolific sketcher with a huge following on Instagram. Aside from that though, I don’t know too much about him (I think Yomou is male but not 100% sure so apologies if I am incorrect about this).
I encourage you to scroll through his fantastic work, which appears to have been mostly done in a Travellers Notebook – note the long, thin format and the clips used to hold the pages down (which certainly gives the game away)!
He collages lots of small drawings together to tell a story of the location he is visiting.
Alena Gastadi is a plein air artist currently living in Luxembourg (at the time of writing). While she does a lot of traditional plein air painting, she also takes time to do some urban sketching too.
Her sketchbook spreads are often comprised of multiple sketches that blend across the page, using beautiful colours and with some lovely bold brush lettering to record the date and location.
In an interview with Alena, I’m certain she said she doesn’t plan her sketchbook spreads; they just happen organically, and she fits sketches into whatever gaps she ends up with. She doesn’t always finish a spread either – and that’s ok!
My friend, urban sketcher from Singapore, Whee Teck, interviewed Alena and you can watch it here.
Becky Cao is another prolific sketcher. She is based in Vancouver, Canada and sketches her life on an almost daily basis! She sketches in cafes a lot, including sketches of her drink, food and an interior scene of the restaurant or the view from the window.
I love the way she blends her food/drink in with a larger scene. I like that she often draws directly in brown ink along with her use of colour, added with a simple waterbrush. There is some very unpretentious and honest about Becky’s drawings which I love. She teaches classes online; there’s a link in her Instagram profile if you’re interested.
Which leads me (seamlessly) to mention, I also teach an online course! If you wish to learn ink & watercolour sketching from the start, join me to learn how to Sketch Your Adventures.
You’ll learn how to draw and paint 3 projects (pictured above) in ink & watercolour, step by step and in real time along with me. My students have had excellent results. A recent student told me this:
Katie Moody is a sketchbook artist & illustrator from the UK. She has such a whimsical, simple and bold style. Her sketchbook spreads are often simply laid out – one full page and 2 sketches on the opposing page – but it works perfectly with her illustrative style. I also like how she mixes watercolour, colour pencils and other materials in her work.
Joaquin Gonzalez Dorao is an illustrator & educator from Spain. He creates incredible travel sketchbook spreads. He has a huge volume of books available to buy; physical and ebook versions (you can find them here) – all of which are beautifully crafted sketchbook spreads from all of the different countries he has visited over the years.
He includes lettering, maps, scenes and zoomed-in sketches of small details, along with handwritten notes.
Santi Salles is a well-know Spanish urban sketcher. His drawings have a wonderful child-like quality. They are so much fun to look at and bring so much joy. I love the way he collages the sketches below from his meal at a particular restaurant.
He also creates sketchbook spreads using boxes, like you might see in comic books or graphic novels.
If you’d like to browse more inspiring sketchbook spreads I encourage you to check out my Pinterest board here. It’s an ever-increasing collection!