My name is Jose Luis Vargas Pozo. I am from the city of Tacna in Peru. I have been an
Urban Sketcher for more than a year and every time I can, I start practicing. I have always liked
to capture my surroundings through drawing, my interpretation of my world through my
hands, being an urban Sketcher has been one of the things that has consolidated me as an
artist, my soul as an artist.
Here is a compilation of some of my works, the most important since I started doing it and all
this in the form of a log where you can appreciate the training process that took me to become
an Urban Sketcher, the way I learned to be one.
I hope with this to contribute in a good way to this beautiful community, which no longer
makes me feel so strange haha. A person painting on the street is very peculiar to see and is
not seen every day, in the eyes of other people, what will our concept be today? And what can
an urban Sketcher transmit to society? Someday I will have my own answers.
Let us begin!!!
September 18, 2022 (TACNA skatepark)
Hello! In addition to practicing drawing, in my free time I go out to the squares or parks and do
a quick urban painting exercise, which I recently found out that this activity is known as “Urban Sketching”, which is practiced by many talented artists and that is great!
Painting in the street is one of the activities that I enjoy the most when I can do it. Makes me
forget about reality for a few moments. It is an activity that every art lover should experience.
So from now on I will do my Urban Sketching! Watercolor is a very difficult technique to
master, but it’s a matter of practice, I guess…
October 21, 2022 (Jorge Chávez Square)
This exercise stood out a lot because here I found the style and handling of watercolors that I
was looking for, from there I noticed a great improvement.
February 28, 2023 (A square near the Municipal Theater)
It’s not for nothing, but so far this year this is my best exercise and also my favorite due to the
fact that I gave myself the freedom to add more colors, since I wanted to give it a much more
artistic touch, I experimented and the result is not so bad haha. I really liked that, adding my
interpretations, giving something more to these sketches.
March 24, 2023 (A square near the Railway Museum)
You can always find one more place where you can sit and start painting
I am surprised by the places I am discovering!
I guess the day will come when I have painted almost everything in the city where I live and I
have to go to other cities, that sounds great and it would be very nice to do it.
By the way, if you’re wondering how long it takes me to do these practices, it’s between 25 to
30 minutes!
April 21, 2023 (Alameda Bolognesi)
It is difficult to simplify points of view like this, where there are many elements to consider. I
usually avoid them, because the time I have for these exercises is not much. But this time I
dared and the result is what you see, I will improve at this little by little
May 3, 2023 (Square behind the cathedral)
In “Urban Sketching” markers are normally used to draw, this is something that I did not follow
haha, I always use pens for sketching and drawing.
But for this occasion if I used a marker for the entire drawing, does it make any difference? I
don’t know, but at least there isn’t that risk of excess ink that sometimes happens to me with
pens.
November 17, 2023 (Pachía)
Without being wrong, this is one of my best sketches of the year, everything here is so
precise… The palette used made it not difficult to work on the cardboard that I usually use,
which as a reminder is not suitable for the characteristics of watercolor jsjs. And when I feel
comfortable with my materials, everything feels like it flows. This simple result of both the
color and the drawing makes me feel a bit nostalgic.
Although I have the patience, I am more into doing quick jobs than doing them for several
hours, I am a little lazy when it comes to making a painting in a “large” size, maybe that is why I
like to be an “Urban Sketcher”, because it is an activity that allows me to have the ideal time to
develop as I really want.
My work still continues.