Liying Qian is an urban sketcher and plein air painter based in Chicago, where she's lived since 2017. She picked up a brush before she picked up a pen in any serious way, spending several years in childhood in China studying Chinese calligraphy and ink wash painting, training that left her with a natural pull toward water-based mediums and a gestural way of putting the world down on paper.

Her path back to the sketchbook wasn't direct: journalism came first, then a shift into market research in 2020. But drawing returned to the picture almost by happy accident, picked up during the pandemic as a way to slow down. She discovered urban sketching shortly after, and by 2023 was an active member of Urban Sketchers Chicago.

She works primarily in watercolor, occasionally reaching for gouache, oil pastel, colored pencil, or ink depending on what a scene calls for. On the page, she's chasing something expressive and evocative.

Since joining USK Chicago, Liying has sketched as a participant at the USK Chicago Seminar in 2024 and 2025 and at the International Urban Sketching Symposium in Poznań in 2025. In 2026, she also joined Plein Air Painters Chicago, taking her practice further outdoors and deeper into natural and city space. That same year, her role with USK Chicago grew too: in May she led a demo during a sketch walk through Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, and in July she served as a sketch correspondent for the USK Chicago Seminar, reporting daily in paint and words.

What she keeps chasing, page after page, is energy and narrative caught in expressive lines, shapes and vivid colors.