In this course I’m going to teach you my approach to urban sketching using watercolor and watercolor pencils. I like spontaneous approach to watercolor, without too much planning that allows watercolor “paint itself” and to keep the image loose and impressionistic. I will teach you how to incorporate human figures into the urban scenes even if you don’t have enough experience in drawing humans.

In my course I will show you my approach using reference photos but you can use the same approach when painting outdoors.

Here are some examples of my paintings: specifically a series of sketches made after my visit to Lyon – the very beautiful city in France.

It’s important to avoid making an exact copy of the reference. When looking on your reference photo, you have to decide what are the most interesting features or details that initially had drawn your attention.

It may be a color itself (detail in color) or a graphically interesting detail, silhouette, figure.

Using my approach you will be able by the end of the course to create your own series of sketches of your favorite city.

To summarize my approach :

- Begin with the exploring the reference and define for yourself what are the key features of it that had drawn your attention

- Start your painting with wet and spontaneous washes to free yourself and to fight the fear of the white page, don’t forget to limit your palette

- Add drawing silhouttes and details

- Continue with big washes using mixture of the same color you began with

- End by adding details to draw the attention of the viewer to the most interesting parts of the painting

I hope you will enjoyed the course and it will be helpful and inspire you to continue to explore the subject of urban sketching.