One corner. Twenty minutes.
A short outing with a beginning, a middle and a sensible place to stop.
Read & try it ↗Opening the sketchbook · No. 01Streets · people · places · practice
Out there. On the page.
There’s a drawing
round the corner.
Street corners, ordinary lives and the pleasure of paying attention. A journal for people who like to draw where they are.
Start where you areA worldwide movement.
With a folding stool.
From a Flickr group to drawing together around the world. The modern movement, the pleasure of ordinary places, and why the café counts too.
Read the storyFind your people.
Explore 594 mapped locations and 548 direct links to groups around the world. Start with your city—or somewhere you hope to draw.
Open the world mapA little fieldcraft. A lot to notice.
Practical guides for the bit between opening the sketchbook and knowing where to begin.
Perspective without the panic.
Eye level, a corner and a few honest comparisons. The street need not pass an architecture exam.
Read & try it ↗
The weather is part of the drawing.
Shelter, changing light and a page that remembers what the day felt like.
Read & try it ↗In the looking room · John Singer Sargent
The building is a pattern of light.
A tangle of timber, a patch of sun and a useful lesson in leaving things out. Look closely at Abriès, then take the question into your own street.
Look with SargentA sketching school, one outing at a time.
Twenty-four lessons, from a first page to colour, crowds and complicated streets.
- Open lesson
The street is already a studio.
A notebook, something that makes a mark, and a place to pause. You can begin before you feel ready.
- Open lesson
Move your feet before the pen.
Composition is easier to change while it is still a choice of where to sit.
- Open lesson
Perspective without the panic.
Eye level, a corner and a few honest comparisons. The street need not pass an architecture exam.
The place. The page. The point.
Thoughts on making a record of the world without turning every sketch into an audition.
One place, three ways of looking.
Keep the location. Change the question. Discover what your first drawing missed.
Read & try it ↗
The city between the landmarks.
Delivery doors, waiting places and the streets that do not expect to be drawn.
Read & try it ↗
A sketchbook is a record, not an audition.
Dates, corrections and the value of keeping a page that did not go to plan.
Read & try it ↗The field desk
A small plan.
Then put the screen away.
Pick an outing prompt, set a quiet timer, explore eye level, or keep a note of what you learned. Useful tools for getting back to the drawing.
Open the field deskOther eyes. Useful questions.
Historical works, contemporary teachers and exercises that bring the looking back to your own page.
Morisot: an interior is a place too.
Sewing near the Window makes attention, light and everyday work a serious subject.
Read & try it ↗
Posada: the street has something to say.
The Skeleton of the Buses puts people, transport and printed words on the same crowded page.
Read & try it ↗
Liz Steel: looking is the work.
A contemporary sketcher’s encouragement to begin, and a small exercise in paying attention.
Read & try it ↗Watch a little. Try something.
Public lessons from working sketchers and painters. Each film has a question and a practical follow-up.
Starting out · Sketching Scottie
How To Start URBAN SKETCHING For Beginners - FUNDAMENTALS GUIDE
Look for: Watch for the move from a broad composition to the main shapes.
Then try: Choose a corner of a room and draw its three largest shapes before any detail.
Watch on YouTube ↗On location · Teoh Yi Chie
What I Learnt From Urban Sketching (LIVE STREAM)
Look for: Choose one question about working outdoors and note a useful answer.
Then try: Try one idea from the discussion on a fifteen-minute drawing from observation.
Watch on YouTube ↗From Mark’s artwork
Familiar places.
Another look.
Liverpool, Ormskirk and Southport, in ink and watercolour.