Urban Sketching

Christina Ann
Mar 30
2 min read

Well! I am officially back into the groove of school after spring break! This week we started our adventures into urban sketching! Basically anything with manmade architecture. This includes working with perspective, which is such a fun challenge to practice with. I normally like to do more nature inspired work and pieces with human subjects so I am glad for the opportunity to shift focus.

1st Session

For my first urban sketching location I joined up with a couple classmates and we drew the neighborhood houses across the street together. It was sooooo delightful! We had originally planned a different location but the afternoon brought a delightful rain which moved us to need a covered porch. I’m so happy it rained though. It was a perfect afternoon, getting to listen to the rain while drawing and painting on a porch with friends! So blessed! And to top it off, a neighbor cat came and hung out with us too, the most friendly and sweet little thing.

Starting out my sketch I actually went into it without any guides at first, just looking for basic shapes and drawing what I observed. It quickly began to look off so I began again and before drawing the house I made a basic perspective grid to follow. This helped so much! The drawing ended up making more sense, even though it wasn’t perfect, it looked much more believable.

After the sketch I went in with a micron ink pen and traced the best lines to bring the house together. After that I added watercolor on top to really pop some life into it. I love the loose style of urban sketching where the colors can just dance around the page and interact with the lines in an artistic way rather than a detailed precise way.

2nd Session

For my next session of urban sketching I went to a neat historical spot in town, Thomas Jefferson’s summer home! There are some great walking paths where his house is and you can even tour his home, it is a very cool experience!

For this session I went straight for the perspective grid before drawing the structure. I decided on a 2-point perspective grid, which was rather tricky for me because his house is shaped kind of like a hexagon. Whatever the case though, I like the way it turned out! One of my favorite things to add into watercolor work is the shadows on the ground. It is always so magical to add in those streaks of shadows across fields of grass. It brings so much depth and personality. It’s also fun that I get to do this in the spring when everything is blooming. It allows for some fun pinks to show up in the trees!