Book Review: Citysketch New York: Nearly 100 Creative Prompts for Sketching the Big Apple

Fun book to sketch and doodle in

I actually bought this book thinking it was a sketchbook. Well, it's more of an activity book for you to doodle and sketch in, rather than a sketchbook that features artworks even though they are included.

Citysketch is a series of doodling books released by Race Point Publishing. So far, the cities covered are New York, Paris and London.

This is a 176 page paperback, about A5 size. The paper quality is quite good to draw on.

The book features different aspect of New York city that you can draw, such as the architecture, art, culture, fashion, food, landscapes and people. There are nearly 100 prompts on what to draw.

For every two pages, there's usually a description of the place or subject, and the opposite page would usually have a half completed sketch for you do drawn onto. For example, when talking about The New York Philharmonic, there's a sketch of an empty theatre stage waiting for you to draw in the conductor and musicians. The one about the Statue of Liberty invites you to draw the statue onto the platform located on the island. For Radio City Music Hall, the building is provided and the suggestion is to draw a red carpet premiere and a limo at the front door.

I imagine some of the drawing tasks will either be difficult or require research, which you will need Google for, or you can just doodle your way through with your imagination. For example, I have no idea how the AT&T Building looks like, or what kind of dishes would be served in 1927. I feel that the book is part fun and work.

What I like about the book is the little bits of information that talks about the subjects, either the background of the buildings, or the food and people there. They are brief but interesting to read.

When the book is filled with your own personal sketches and doodles, it will look quite good.

Citysketch New York: Nearly 100 Creative Prompts for Sketching the Big Apple (Doodle Book for Dreamers) is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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