Learn urban sketching techniques for pen, ink and watercolor with guidance from pro artist Marc Taro Holmes. In your first lesson, find out how to create a quick single-line sketch of your surroundings before adding darks to create contrast and dimension. Switch to a brush pen as Marc teaches you how to draw like a painter by working with tone and shape instead of in line. Next, get tips for using your sketchbook to tell a compelling visual story. Take your travel sketching skills even further as Marc teaches you three strategies for making perspective sketches painless. Then, build watercolor skills for capturing shapes, making your focal points pop and bringing spectacular detail to your work. You’ll even learn layering and finishing techniques for completing sophisticated watercolors.
Class Sessions
Single-Line Sketching
30:25
Meet your instructor Marc Taro Holmes and learn how to create beautiful sketches while traveling. He'll review the basic materials you need to start your adventure. Then, practice the single-line sketch for simplicity and speed. Marc will also show you how to add in darks for contrast.
Draw Like a Painter
29:36
Learn Marc's "drawing like a painter" technique and use a brush pen to indicate light and dark areas on a street scene. Then, see how to translate this technique to a variety of shapes and sketches from statues to more complex scenes, like town squares, using water-soluble ink.
Tinting Drawings in Watercolor
27:21
See how to add color and life to your line drawings as Marc layers color washes onto simple sketches. You'll learn to use watercolor by breaking scenes into shapes, charging-in with color and utilizing the wet-in-wet technique to grow a wash of color.
Sketch Collecting
20:51
Sketchbooks are a great way to tell the story of your travels through themes and montages. Marc provides examples from his personal sketchbooks for single-page storytelling inspiration. Then, learn how to make a travel log of your trip by thinking like a documentary filmmaker.
Painless Perspective
23:59
Don't be intimidated by perspective sketches. Marc demonstrates his solutions for helping break down perspective through neutralizing the angle and simplifying the details for easy visualization. Then learn how to approximate perspective on a city street with a single-line drawing.
Watercolor Sketching
21:06
Take your skills up a notch and begin watercolor sketching! Begin to see basic shapes and how they interact with each other. Follow Marc's direction for painting in the negative space to let the focal points pop, and then learn how to charge-in the fine details to finish off a watercolor sketch.
Working in Layers
16:26
Follow Marc's direction to work with multiple layers of watercolor to achieve a professional look to your painting. Planning the composition from the start will allow you to add midtones on dry paint for a gorgeous result. Finally, learn how to add details and finishing touches to bring your pieces together.
Your Instructor
Marc Taro Holmes
Marc Taro Holmes is a sketchbook artist and plein-air painter who works in ink, watercolor and oils. Since 2009, he's been a correspondent for the international website of reportage artists, urbansketchers.org. He's the author of The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location, published by North Light Books. Marc also enjoyed a 15-year career as an art director and concept artist in the video game industry, working for studios such as Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Disney.
Bonus Material
Travel Sketching in Mixed Media - Supplies
Bonus Materials available for download after purchase.
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