Sketches of Leicester

Life is a little different right now and people everywhere have been thinking of inspiring ways to uplift spirits and provide some distraction from the worries we are all experiencing right now. A Facebook sketch club have done just that! 

Emma Fitzpatrick is an artist and designer living in Leicester with much of her work based on street views of our historic city. Since Lockdown began, two Facebook groups have sprung up - one created by Emma called #virtualsketchleicester and another called #VirtualSketch which has a global following of world class sketchers who visit different cities around the world each week. Recently, that group invited her to host a Sketch Walk in Leicester.

On Sunday 10th May the virtual sketchers visited Leicester (virtually of course!) and attracted over 90 visitors from countries across the globe including China, India, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Hungary, Netherlands and France contributing over 100 drawings and paintings.

We've been lucky enough to speak with Emma and have been given access to the wonderful sketches which we are able to share with our Visit Leicester followers. They are truly brilliant! 

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Market Place - Tim Griffiths (Birmingham)

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Grey Friars - Ravi Gadre (Pune, India)

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Granby Street - Gede Agus Putra Jaya (Indonesia)

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St Mary de Castro - Sue Clegg (Leicester)

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The Exchange - Yap Yeen Yee (Malaysia)

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Leicester Cathedral & Guildhall - Debbie Miles(Leicester)

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St Mary de Castro - Samantha Pirard ( Belgium)

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Cathedral Gardens - Jee Yuan Lim (Malaysia)

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Grey Friars - Rain Carreon (Paris)

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Town Hall - Tony Chin (Malayasia)

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Grand Hotel - Will Harvey (Suffolk)

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Towards Castle Yard - Phaik Kee (Malayasia)

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Turkey Cafe - Ors Levay (Budapest)

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Carts Lane - Si Chan (Malayasia)

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Gateway/Castle Yard - Toni Northcott (Leicestershire)

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Leicester Cathedral - Neil McIrvine (Australia)

Truly inspiring right? Emma told us  “Most people are struggling with this lockdown and so the main aim behind the event was to try to help people a little bit through this stressful situation. It doesn’t matter if you are good at drawing or not, the doing of it is where the benefit lies and not the result. By drawing something, you can become distracted from your worries for a time, it can help you find time and space just for yourself, help you slow down and can give an opportunity for the creative part of our brains that we all possess to come out. All are welcome at #virtualsketchleicester.”

There were so many sketches but we just didn't have enough space to include them all, but do follow our Facebook and Twitter  channels as we will be sharing more in the coming weeks.