Celebrating our sketches – September 2019

Thank you all for another sketching challenge to remember! Like so many months before, our September challenge last weekend was a true virtual journey around the world — from the golden temples of Nepal to bathing elephants in Botswana to the rocky beaches of Malta, I love how many different cultures and traditions we got to glimpse through your sketches this month.

And yet I also love how our September challenge celebrated another kind of tradition — the quiet, everyday rituals and traditions of home, such as strawberry crepes on Sunday mornings and trips to our local grocery store before company comes into town.

When we’re traveling, it’s amazing how alive our senses become; it’s as though we suddenly see the world in full-color and notice so many more details we want to remember. But the inverse of that sensation means that so often when we’re at home, we don’t come as alive to the world in our backyard. And yet through so many of your sketches from this month’s challenge, I was so happy to see how sketching helped you see your everyday world and routines in a new light. For me, the power of sketching is how it helps make the ordinary suddenly seem quite extraordinary.

I especially loved reading how Molly in the U.S. wrote about this particular gift of sketching:

While I always love to celebrate the global nature of our community and the incredible sketches you share from all across the world, this month I was especially moved by the moments you captured at home — right in your very own kitchens, backyards, and hometowns. As Frederick Frank describes them so perfectly, thank you for sharing your “sheer miracles” with us:

To view the rest of the images from our September 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.

Moment Sketchers, here’s to celebrating the sheer miracles and beauty right in our own backyards…see you in October!