<\/p>\n
Since opening its doors months ago, City Arts Gallery has hosted a weekly drawing club on Saturdays, welcoming the public to learn from the community.<\/p>\n
TJ Walkup, who has worked in the creative industry all of his life, illustrates books in his free time from work as a videographer. Each Saturday, Walkup can be found working at the City Arts Gallery in Vallejo, where his own love of art led him to start the Saturday Drawing Club.<\/p>\n
Walkup has frequented drawing clubs at various locations throughout the city over the years, but with an unpredictable schedule, nothing ever stuck. The club he hosts now is the perfect opportunity to not only hone his craft, but do so alongside other local artists.<\/p>\n
The concept is simple. It\u2019s free, there\u2019s no sign up and people are expected to bring their own materials. That simple concept however, has managed to attract local artists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had people come from Benicia now on a regular basis,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The club has also attracted professional muralists in Vallejo, teenagers and just about everyone in between. \u201cWe\u2019ve had incredible people come at all levels,\u201d says Walkup.<\/p>\n
Although artists are expected to bring their own materials, excluding any that could stain and spill such as ink, Walkup does have several books on drawing principles that visitors can peruse while they draw, so beginners can learn the basics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s easy and fun and meant to be encouraging,\u201d said Walkup. \u201cIt\u2019s not a class, however there are many skilled artists in the room and if you need help, they\u2019re easily trading secrets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Events like the Saturday Drawing Club are important to any artist\u2019s development, he says. \u201cIn my opinion,\u201d says Walkup, \u201cthere\u2019s no such thing as talent, just people who sat long enough and worked hard enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walkup says getting the perspective of other artists on his work is \u201cessential.\u201d It helps an artist to think outside the box and see things from a new angle. Walkup remembers one distinct time his daughter came in and added an element to one of his illustrations when he was struggling to finish. \u201cI\u2019m 54, or 53 at the time, my daughter was 13 and she helped me see something I couldn\u2019t see,\u201d he remembers.<\/p>\n
Walkup hopes that the weekly club provides a space where others can find that community support and perspective as well. The Saturday Drawing Club will continue every Saturday for the foreseeable future. Anyone is welcome to attend, although minors must be accompanied by a participating adult.<\/p>\n
The City Arts Gallery opened earlier this year and shows exclusively Solano County artists, with some special show exceptions, says Walkup.<\/p>\n
If you go \u2026<\/p>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.timesheraldonline.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since opening its doors months ago, City Arts Gallery has hosted a weekly drawing club on Saturdays, welcoming the public to learn from the community. TJ Walkup, who has worked in the creative industry all of his life, illustrates books in his free time from work as a videographer. Each Saturday, Walkup can be found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1993712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[22220,22691,21741,22034,21818,343508,343509,332338,22482,332339,332340],"class_list":["post-1993711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-arts","tag-california","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-lifestyle","tag-north-bay","tag-northern-california","tag-solano-county","tag-things-to-do","tag-vacaville","tag-vallejo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Saturday-Drawing-Club-draws-local-artists-\u2013-Times-Herald-Online.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1993711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1993712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1993711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1993711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1993711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}