Meet the Correspondent – Sunil Shinde

Sketching is an addiction.

I cannot stop sketching. I feel withdrawal symptoms when I don't sketch . Sketching continues despite health problem awareness. Sketching causes social and recreational sacrifices. I always maintain a good (sketching) supply.

Minus having any problems with the law (so far) I seem to display all the symptoms of an addict.

I sketched a bit as a kid. I drafted a bit as part of my engineering degree. Then twenty five years later, on a whim, I bought myself a cheap sketchbook and a $12 pan of student grade watercolors.  Don’t the best things happen on a whim?

The Seattle Urbansketchers is a motley lot. I was fortunate to find them early on.  Sketching with the group helped me get over the startup anxiety.  The helpful comments of fellow sketchers on the urbansketchers Facebook help tide over the fear of sharing. Online and in person workshops helped lose (some) bad habits and gain (many) good ones. I even started sharing on Instagram. (“Papa, Instagram is like a Facebook for young people” said my daughter Rhea, then age 13 “like me.”)

My business forces me to travel a lot. When I am not traveling on business, I am traveling for myself. When I am not traveling, I am thinking of traveling. It is hardly surprising that I am a travel sketcher. I love architecture, so I sketch a lot of buildings. I hate crowds, but I soon realized sketches look melancholy without people, so I have started adding people to my sketches. I practice figure sketching by sketching in business meetings, strategy off-sites, sales conferences and training symposium. That allows me to believe that I am being paid for sketching. It helps rationalize guilt on my weekly visit to the Daniel Smith art store for replenishing supplies.

If you come across a bald guy squatting on the streets of Seattle, squinting into a sketchbook, stop and say Hi J

Trinity Episcopal Church, Seattle

Sensoji Temple, Tokyo,