5 Urban Sketching Techniques for Beginners

Practice one and two point perspective through a hands-on exercise. After this exercise, you will understand the basics of perspective enough to be able to use it in your future urban sketches.

In this class, you'll follow along with the instructor's demonstration to draw an ornate Venetian building with a crowd of people. Use pencil, pen, and watercolor to construct basic perspective, add color, and create dimension in your artwork.

The instructor will lead you through 4 different approaches with a variety of mediums while creating jewel-like sketches in small format.

Jump right in the world of color by learning a new technique called colorblocking without an initial pencil or pen sketch. Add clarity, details, and texture with black and white pen afterwards. Don't worry, the instructor will show you how! This method is great if you're short on time and want to quickly express the colors you see because sometimes, you don't even need to use the pen for details/textures.

In real life, you're surrounded by a 360 view of inspiration. How do you pick what to draw? This exercise will be great practice in doing super quick sketches so you can work out composition and tonal distribution before spending more time on a larger, more refined colorful artwork.

You may gravitate towards sketching only when the sun is up, but as long as you have light - you can draw! Streetlights, lamps, even a headlamp is all you need. In this exercise, you'll practice sketching after the sun has gone down and you'll learn a simple trick that can turn any drawing into a night scene.

Take a look at what other students created in the course. Seeing different approaches to the same exercise can give you ideas on how to do it differently next time and help you appreciate what makes your sketches unique.