PHIL DEAN

Phil Dean is an artist and graphic designer who goes by the name “The Shoreditch Sketcher”. He graduated from the Leeds College of Art, before moving to London where he runs his own creative agency, Certain.

Phil regularly teaches urban sketching workshops and posts drawings from cities around the world on his popular Instagram account, @shoreditchsketcher, which has more than 50,000 followers. His new book, TATE Sketch Club: Urban Drawing, is published by Ilex Press.

SKETCHING IT OUT

I’ve always drawn with pen. I trained as a graphic designer and drawing was a big part of the course back in those days. We got bored of drawing life models, so we started going out drawing buildings instead. I was taught by a drawing tutor called Laimonis Mierins. He’s a Latvian fine artist, but his style was to go straight in with ink on paper, no pencil or charcoal first. Sometimes if I’ve not much time my style can be quite loose, but if I’ve got a bit of time and I’m sat down with a beer or a glass of wine, it can be a bit tighter.

If you fast forward to about six