Art Advantage Urban Draw and Color 8 Piece Set

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The main thing is to enjoy the process of urban sketching. It’s such a fantastic hobby, especially if you enjoy travelling, whether that’s exploring and discovering new areas in a 2-hour radius from your home or whether you like hopping across continents.

In this post , I talk you through how I would start an urban sketch when I’m on location. From sketching in pencil, adding details with ink, adding colour with watercolour, and adding contrast through to creating emphasis in your sketch. This is my process and is not the only way to produce a sketch, just some suggestions on how to go about getting started. For those who are beginner artists excited at the prospect of urban sketching but still needing to learn the art of drawing and painting, practising the basic concepts and techniques at home is a great way to step towards sketching on location. As noted above, writing can be part of the drawing process. As such, if desired, space can be left blank or set aside for writing during the sketching experience or to be completed afterwards. Sometimes it pays to give one’s thoughts some time before putting them down, allowing the memory to settle a bit before remembering it. This way writing is also a little creative and not too analytical. It loses its stiff, factual nature and becomes part of our creativity.

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Urban Sketchers is a non-profit organisation with a clear mission and manifesto. The movement was started by Gabriel Camapanario in 2007. Gabriel is based in Seattle and is a journalist and illustrator. He started an online forum and invited other sketchers who enjoy sketching on location in their local area to share the sketches with each other. The emphasis of the group was to share sketches drawn from life and on location, not from memory and not from photos. And finally, make sure you're welcome where you want to draw. Some places do like people loitering, or don't want you working with paints that might spill (just ask, if you're not sure). You'll always want to make sure you're not accidentally disturbing someone with your presence. The competition is open to all those that live in the UK and are aged 18 years and over, except for Urban Draw employees, their family members or anyone that is connected with the running of the competition. You must also be located in the UK when you play to successfully complete your entry. Please note, strictly only 1 account per household is permitted.

In this post, I go into further detail on how to practice the skills required for urban sketching from the comfort of your own home. If you opt in to receive marketing, or join the Urban Draw social competition Community, we may send you marketing messages based on your communication preferences. Because of its emphasis on spontaneity urban sketching does not require much to get started. You don't need to plan a sophisticated composition or create preparational sketches.Once you have practised sketching at home and you feel ready, get outside and start sketching from life…this is where the magic lies! Get Outside! The symposium in 2020 should have been in Hong Kong but unfortunately due to protests and fears for the safety of holding such an event, it had to be cancelled. Little did we know the Covid-19 pandemic was around the corner and so it sadly would have been cancelled anyway. The world is a complex environment and so is the urban sketcher’s mind, where thoughts and memories are triggered by the act of drawing. Complexity also derives from the diverse feelings that any situation can produce and that want to be communicated by drawing, such as elation and energy, fun and surprise. The exploration of that complexity through repeated drawing on location and communication to others of the findings of the drawn experiments is at the heart of urban sketching. Example 4: Isabel Carmona Andreu, Warsaw Square (long view), fountain pen and colour pencil on paper If you win (someone has to win every competition so may as well be you) with your prior consent your name, location, images and video where applicable of you and your prize will be used by Urban Draw in marketing materials to promote the competition. And the subject you've chosen might be just as busy. You might see many houses, signs, cars, pigeons, more people. There are things lying on the floor and hanging on the walls. If you were to try and draw all that you'd need all day for just the one sketch.