Instructors

Julie Crouch

Julie is a graduate of UCLA and Loyola Law School. When she retired from practicing law in 2002, she started taking watercolor classes and hasn’t put her brushes down since. She has studied with renowned artists including Gerald Brommer, Tom Fong, Carl Purcell, Iain Stewart, Brenda Swenson, Mel Stabin, Joseph Stoddard, and Frank Webb, as well as many local artists.

​A Signature Member of Watercolor West and Western Colorado Watercolor Society, she has served on their Boards as well as having held the office of President (and many other positions) of the Mid-Valley Arts League. She is one of the administrators of Urban Sketchers Los Angeles.

Julie teaches watercolor classes at Creative Arts Group in Sierra Madre and has done demonstrations and workshops for many watercolor organizations.

Her work has been juried into several national and international exhibitions. She received the Valley Watercolor Society Top Honors Award in their 2012 and 2015 juried exhibitions.

Miran Moon

Miran is a graduate of California State University, Fullerton with a Bachelor of Arts in Illustration. She has worked professionally as a production illustrator, graphic designer, and freelance illustrator.

She has been a member of Urban Sketchers Los Angeles since 2016 and has participated in numerous USk chapter gatherings around the world. Miran attended the USk Symposiums in Porto and Amsterdam and was a co-author for the Amsterdam Symposium.

Founder of two café sketching groups, Miran has also held multiple Procreate workshops for beginners.

Miran has participated in over 20 group art exhibitions and 2 solo art exhibitions. She was invited as an honorary guest at the 2019 Gyeongju Festa in Korea (the largest USk symposium in South Korea) and was featured in the Chosun Daily LA newspaper 2021 issue “The Traveling Artist”.

Bob Murrin

Bob is a graduate of USC with a Master’s in Architecture. With over 45 years at prestigious Los Angeles architecture firm AC Martin, he is LEED Accredited and in 2014 was awarded the distinguished title of Fellow by the American Institute of Architects.

A member of the Urban Sketchers Los Angeles chapter, Bob attended the Urban Sketchers 2019 Symposium in Amsterdam.

Bob has a passion for plein air drawing and painting and urban sketching. His preferred medium is watercolor and pen & Ink. Painting on-site and outdoors gives him an immediate gratification and an appreciation of the details of the setting, with hyper observation of the changing light and shadows.

Prior juried exhibits include “Paint Long Beach” by Long Beach Creative Group 2022, and “Fresh” by ArtClout 2022.

John Pitblado

John was born and raised in the vast, flat plains of northern Minnesota. He studied painting and fine arts at University of Minnesota and Minneapolis College of Art and Design, but is now a nearly thirty year resident of the city of Los Angeles.

An avid explorer of his adopted city and the Southwest, he is always with a pen, paper, or sketchbook in hand. The contrasts in the area: sun, heat, shadows, ocean, desert rocks, and concrete all find a place in his visual vocabulary. While his urban sketching work is strongly based in line and gesture, the color, atmosphere, and dimensionality of the California landscape informs much of his work.

Beginning a sketch by finding the defining line, maybe a horizon line or perhaps the edges the area of focus, then building on this line to build the shapes that express my personal connection to a locale. Adding color, value or tone so the sketch will resonate with a sense of the place.

Sarah Sullivan

Sarah was a full-time childhood artist slowed by roles as student, mother, teacher, and middle school principal. She filled her sketchbooks with places visited, people met, and most importantly, her children and husband. Now, with more time at hand, she has immersed herself in urban sketching and plein air painting.

Sarah has developed strong preferences for the materials she uses and the scenes to paint. She mainly uses gouache on a black surface and paints stories that feature contrast, shapes, and color.

A member of Urban Sketchers San Diego, Sarah has participated in several exhibitions and received many awards:

  • 2022 A Travel Journal of Plein Air Sketches, Fallbrook California
  • 2022 47th Annual Western Federation of Watercolor Societies Exhibition, Albuquerque New Mexico
  • 2022 Coronado Public Library Exhibition
  • 2021 Best of Theme, November Juried Show, San Diego Watercolor Society   
  • 2020 Third Place, December Juried Show, San Diego Watercolor Society
  • 2020 Best of Theme, September Juried Show, San Diego Watercolor Society
  • 2019 Second Place, Third Annual Plein Air Exhibition, San Diego Watercolor Society 
  • 2019 39th International Exhibition, San Diego Watercolor Society
  • 2019 Best of Miniatures, September Juried Show, San Diego Watercolor Society
  • and several other accolades from the San Diego Watercolor Society

Don Terlinden

Don graduated from Pomona College in Claremont, California with a degree in Math. Determined to be an artist and armed with a fascination for life drawing that has persisted to this day, he went from making illustrations for remote learning to creating motion graphics and 3D animations for large corporate presentations (working with clients such as NBCUniversal and FoxTV).

A member of Urban Sketchers Los Angeles, Don has recently become involved with a plein-air painting group as well.

With a fair amount of experience with both traditional and digital media, Don is striving to integrate the two more fully in his work. His favorite traditional media are fountain pens, colored pencils, gouache, and oils. His favorite digital software is Procreate on the iPad, though he is no stranger to the ubiquitous Photoshop.

Zhen Xu

Zhen is a self-taught artist working in finance. She has loved sketching ever since she was little, doodling on the back of math homework and on cement floors with colored chalks. 

She created a daily comic strip in her college newspaper for three years and continued to make cartoons afterwards, before expanding her explorations to figure painting at local galleries and finally going full circle back to her first love of sketching, now with watercolors.

Zhen believes the beauty of life resides in often-neglected details and feels a constant, inexplicable urge to capture the world in its brief moments of stillness. 

She especially enjoys the challenge of drawing people in dynamic social settings and public places, such as parks, coffee shops, and festivals. She is an avid traveler and paints on location all over the world.