ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to wholeheartedly thank the artists who contributed their beautiful work to this book with such generosity and grace. It has been a privilege to get to know them through their sketches of the people in their lives. When I was asked to write this book, I was delighted and excited, but it was only when I looked at the work of other sketchers that it dawned on me what a huge privilege it was to have been asked, and I am in great company. I would like to thank my parents, Cinnie and Paddy, for buying all those Asterix and Tintin books, many of which I still have. Thanks are due to the great Posy Simmonds, who showed me that all of human nature could be depicted in a well-observed and skilled line, and who answered when I wrote to her with a question about how she did it. Thanks to Quentin Blake for his invaluable advice about drawing weight all those years ago. Posthumous and eternal thanks are due to the brilliant Brueghel, Hergé, and Uderzo for igniting a spark that continues to burn. I would like to thank my family for their endless patience in keeping still for me even when they wanted to move, and for their initial good intentions when they felt compelled to fidget. I would like to thank Joy Aquilino and the team at The Quarto Group for their patience and guidance. I am so grateful to have been commissioned to write this book. To be asked to show how to depict the most beautiful thing in anyone’s life-each other-was to be charged with a sacred task. Last but not least, I thank Gabi Campanario for bringing the miracle that is urban sketching to everyone, everywhere, and the wonderful, warm community of urban sketchers the world over for making this activity of ours such a joy and gift in our lives.