The Complete Urban Sketching Companion

Essential Concepts and Techniques from The Urban Sketching Handbooks--Architecture and Cityscapes, Understanding Perspective, People and Motion, Working with Color

Shari Blaukopf, Stephanie Bower, Gabriel Campanario

• Publisher: Quarry Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781631599347
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art Techniques

Get great techniques, tips, and ideas from the Urban Sketching Handbook series in one place! With this thorough guide, discover how to sketch architecture and cityscapes, plus people and motion; learn drawing perspective; and see how easy it is to add color to artwork.

UNDERSTANDING PERSPECTIVE

Imagine you are standing in an amazing space, say the Pantheon in Rome. Snapping a quick photo like everyone else isn’t enough—you want to somehow capture this experience, but your group is leaving in only half an hour. What do you do? SKETCH!

Sketching on location is powerful. You have to look at something really carefully to draw it. The process of drawing imprints what you see into your brain in such a way that years from now, the sounds of the people walking by, the scent of the rain, the feel of the warm air, and much more will all flood back when you look at your sketch. Urban Sketching is about capturing your experiences on paper, and more important, in your mind and heart. It’s a great way to learn and remember.

That said, sketching on location can be challenging and overwhelming. Where do you start a sketch? How do you shrink the vast, busy scene in front of you onto your paper? How does perspective work? And where is that darn vanishing point? This chapter helps you bridge the theoretical world of perspective concepts with the real world of on-site sketching.

All good sketches start with good bones. Perspective is simply a set of rules “discovered” during the Italian Renaissance that allows us to translate what we see in our three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional surface, such as a piece of paper or canvas. These principles provide us with a simple structure we can use to create the foundational lines in our sketches.

Perspective doesn’t have to be frightening or something you avoid. Once you know some basics and a simple process, your sketches will be faster, easier, and more believable—and it will change the way you see the world, as you’ll see perspective everywhere!

Best of all, when you leave Rome with sketchbook in hand, you’ll be bringing a bit of the Pantheon with you…

Pantheon, Rome, Italy

16” × 5” | 40.5 × 12.5 cm; Pencil, watercolor, Pentalic Aqua Journal; about 45 minutes. One-point/eye-level view.

KEY I

BASICS

Some basic concepts are the first keys to opening the door of Understanding Perspective.

Terms

Proportions and Measuring

”One of the primary motivations for drawing this scene was how the beautiful sunlight interacted with this unusual architectural remnant. More layers of ink were necessary to make the sunlight glow.”

— Fred Lynch

FRED LYNCH

USA

Bella Vista Doorway

12.5” × 9.5” | 31.5 × 24 cm; Winsor & Newton brown ink, Arches Hot Press Watercolor Block; 2 hours plus 1 hour in studio. One-point/eye-level view.

TERMS

Architects use these terms all the time, and it is very helpful for perspective sketchers to understand this vocabulary as well.

Parallel

Lines, planes, and objects that are spaced an equal distance apart are...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• About This Series
• Introduction
• Architecture and Cityscapes
• Understanding Perspective
• People and Motion
• Working with Color
• Challenges
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Index
• Copyright