Celebrating our sketches – May 2019

On Sunday night, José and I were late getting home from dinner (and Game of Thrones, of course!) at a friend’s house. Given the fact that it was nearly 1am, José went straight about our loft closing the curtains, turning the lights off, and just generally getting ready to bring the day to an end. I, however, opened up my phone to check out the #momentsketchers feed on Instagram as soon as we walked in the door, and several minutes later, I still hadn’t moved beyond our entryway.

“What are you working on over there?” José asked as he lowered the last curtain.

Finally I looked up from my phone for the first time and told him I’d just been chatting with a new Moment Sketcher in Vietnam named Tiffany, thanks to Instagram’s direct messaging feature.

I said this casually, almost taking it for granted how much our worlds have opened up thanks to smartphones and social media. Only now, at a far more respectable hour on Monday afternoon, can I reflect back on my first connection with Tiffany with the wonder and gratitude that moment deserves. Is it not extraordinary that we can now so easily engage with artists on the other side of the world? And that our conversations with each other can be a regular part of our days and life?

This sense of wonder and gratitude has stayed with me all day, as I’ve taken in your amazing collection of sketches from our May challenge. This weekend, more than 70 artists joined in from 20 countries across the world, and today, I’m not only grateful for the gift of sketching, but also for the more unexpected gifts of smartphones and Instagram that help bring us all together — month after month, sketch after beautiful sketch.

This month’s theme was inspired by the above quote that Moment Sketcher Yamuna shared with her sketch, which featured a beautiful sunset scene in Udaipur, India. To me, the quote perfectly sums up the essence behind our monthly challenges: that each moment is the moment it is, and that sketching helps us capture more and more singular moments from our lives.

And so for the following collage of sketches, I loved bringing together some of the fleeting moments you all captured this month, moments such as a neon-colored sunset in France, a bee resting on a flower in Australia, and a single magnificent peony in full bloom in New York. These moments — and so many more that you all shared for our May challenge — are ephemeral, but thanks to the transformative power of art, your sketches have rendered them eternal.

To view the rest of the images from our May 2019 sketching challenge, all you need to do is visit this link to see the entire gallery — and even if you don’t have an Instagram account, you can still view it in your browser.

Thank you as always for being part of our community, friends! Here’s to capturing the beautiful, fleeting moments of our lives through art.