The Urban Sketcher

Make the world your studio! Capture the bustle and beauty of life in your town. Experience life as only an artist can! Join the rapidly growing, international movement of artists united by a passion for drawing on location in the cities, towns and villages where they live and travel. Packed with art and advice from Marc Taro Holmes, artist and co-founder of Urbansketchers.org, this self-directed workshop shows you how to draw inspiration from real life and bring that same excitement into your sketchbook. Inside you'll find everything you need to tackle subjects ranging from still lifes and architecture to people and busy street scenes. • 15 step-by-step demonstrations cover techniques for creating expressive drawings using pencil, pen and ink, and watercolor. • Expert tips for achieving a balance of accuracy, spontaneity and speed. • Practical advice for working in the field, choosing subjects, coping with onlookers, capturing people in motion and more. • Daily exercises and creative prompts for everything from improving essential skills to diverse approaches, such as montages, storytelling portraits and one-page graphic novels. Whether you are a habitual doodler or a seasoned artist, The Urban Sketcher will have you out in the world sketching from the very first page. By completing drawings on the spot, in one session, you achieve a fresh impression of not just what you see, but also what it feels like to be there . . . visual life stories as only you can experience them.

The Art of Urban Sketching is both a comprehensive guide and a showcase of location drawings by artists around the world who draw the cities where they live and travel. Authored by the founder of the nonprofit organization Urban Sketchers (www.urbansketchers.org), this beautiful, 320-page volume explains urban sketching within the context of a long historical tradition and how it is being practiced today. With profiles of leading practitioners and discussions of the benefits of working in this art form, this inspiring book shows how one can participate and experience this creative outlet through modern-day social networks and online activity. You'll find more than 600 beautiful, contemporary illustrations, as well as artists' profiles and extended captions where these urban sketchers share their stories, how they work, sketching tips, and the tools behind each drawing. With sketches and observations from more than 50 cities in more than 30 countries, TheArt of UrbanSketching offers a visually arresting, storytelling take on urban life from different cultures and artistic styles, as well as insight into various drawing techniques and mediums.

Galway artist Roisin Cure presents snapshots of life in the City of the Tribes in bold ink and vibrant watercolor. Her sketches show the beautiful details of Galway's pubs, the musicians and buskers, the exquisite medieval stonework, the marine environment, the vibrant nightlife culture, and the local colorful characters. These striking pictures are accompanied by recollections of conversations the artist had while sketching. This book is a unique souvenir of Galway, of a city that is famous for the arts and yet has so little in the way of visual art. It is a very timely book, released in advance of Galway 2020, when the city celebrates being European Capital of Culture.

A guide that shows painters, drawers, doodlers, and urban sketchers how to bring their drawings to life with colorful, bold, yet accessible painting methods. Watercolor sketching is a rapidly emerging technique that enlivens sketches done in pen or pencil with the expressive washes, glazes, and luminous hues of watercolor . This lushly illustrated resource teaches artists on the go how to sketch with watercolor, rendering subjects efficiently and without inhibitions. Readers are guided through all aspects of the medium, from fundamental techniques including wet-on-wet, glazing, and washes; materials and supplies; and little known tips and tricks for getting the most out of watercolor (for example, just sprinkling a little salt on your painting creates a texture that's impossible to achieve with a brush.) A strong focus color theory provides a solid foundation for enhancing drawings with vibrant hues.

A good sketch starts with good bones—this guide from an architectural illustrator shows how to think like an architect and master accurate perspective. This book in the Urban Sketching Handbook series uses drawings and simple steps to explain the often challenging and overwhelming concepts of perspective in practical and useful ways for on-site sketching. Most books are either too abstract or don’t provide enough information that relates to what you actually do when you’re out in the busy, wide world about to start a drawing. Where do you start? How do you edit what you see to flatten and shrink it onto your paper? How does perspective work? The Urban Sketching Handbook: Understanding Perspective helps you learn to think like an architect, to draw buildings and spaces by reducing what you see to simple, basic shapes, then adding layers in simple steps, and finally finishing your sketch with detail, tone, and color—in accurate perspective. Full of helpful tips, it even deconstructs sketches to show you how to create them! Once you understand perspective, it will change the way you see the world—you’ll see perspective everywhere. Key concepts explored in this volume include: Basic Terms * Basic Spatial Principles * Types of Perspective * Building a Sketch in Layers * Special Conditions

The Urban Sketching Handbook: Architecture and Cityscapesprovides keys to help make the experience of drawing architecture and cityscapes fun and rewarding, using composition, depth, scale, contrast, line and creativity.

In The Urban Sketching Handbook: Techniques for Beginners, artist and Urban Sketcher correspondent Suhita Shirodkar shares essential skills for sketching architecture, people, and everyday objects on location. You'll learn the basics of value, color mixing, and perspective through helpful studies and exercises, whether at home, in studio, and on location. The Urban Sketching Handbook: Techniques for Beginners is perfect for anyone who’s just getting started in this fascinating art form, or who wants to develop their observational and drawing aptitude by reinforcing basic concepts. TheUrban Sketching Handbook series offers location artists expert instruction on creative techniques, on-location tips and advice, and an abundance of visual inspiration. These handy references come in a compact, easy-to-carry format with an elastic band closure—perfect to toss in your backpack or artist’s tote.

Urban sketcher Mike Daikubara gives beginners a crash course in location sketching that you can use in any city or town in Sketch Now, Think Later.