Techniques for creating quick & lively urban scenes
Synopsis: Join the growing movement of reactionary artists and learn how to capture our fast-paced world in this inspiring book by popular artist and author, Klaus Meier-Pauken.
With useful advice on the basic materials needed, Urban Sketching Step by Step then moves on to honing essential drawing techniques from tone and colour to perspective and composition.
The huge collection of creative exercises will help you build your skills, see your surroundings with a new artistic eye and draw lively sketches of your city or town that reflect its character.
Whether you are looking to discover your own sketching style, or to build on your existing knowledge, this book is packed with material to get you creating your own dynamic works of art.
Why I liked this
There is so much to love in this inspiring book, it’s like a conversation with the author Klaus, as he shares his knowledge and advice in such a helpful way.
As you will see from the list below, the content is very comprehensive, including:
Urban Sketching- Sketching in the city
– Equipment – everything you need to know about the best equipment to use, and it is really is just a few materials.
– Quick sketches as essential training
– Lines and surfaces in your drawing
– Pencil, ink or colour?
Spatial perception in the city
– Selecting a scene in public places
– Perspective: horizons, position lines and vanishing points
Composing a harmonious sketch
– Arranging people and objects in space
– Foreground, middle ground and background
– The illusion of spatial depth
– Bringing your picture to life
– Shading and textures
– Light and shadow
– Getting your message across
– Tension and dynamism
– Using colour
Bringing individual elements to life
– Buildings and architecture
– Trees and vegetation
– People
– Cars, buses and trains
– Surfaces and materials
Capturing typical locations in sketches
– Streets, alleyways, courtyards and squares
– Landscapes, parks and gardens
– Details
– Canals, rivers and the sea
Afterword The magic of particular places
But it’s not just the really helpful advice in this book that makes it so special, throughout the book there are delightful and exquisite sketches created by Klaus himself, featuring cities such as London, New York, Paris and Venice.
On every page there is encouragement and advice on how to create perspective accurately, introduce texture and shading, how to bring people into the picture, draw water and so much more, as well as the 18 step by step exercises.
I particularly loved the sentiment in the Afterword, when Klaus describes his own favourite places,
‘Despite the wealth of fabulous buildings in Paris…. I always find my attention is drawn to the less spectacular rows of townhouses found in certain quarters of the city. Time and time again, I find myself enchanted by towering walls, narrow windows, fitted with ornate grilles and shutters and firewalls capped by multiple chimneys resembling the pipes of an organ……. In Venice it is the façades and interiors that catch my eye in all their diversity, beauty and perfection, as well as the carefully proportioned walls that surround the city’s squares and connect them to all those narrow alleyways to produce a wonderful spatial sequence’
If you are inspired to try urban sketching yourself, this book is a wonderful companion. Highly Recommended!
Urban Sketching – Step by Step – Klaus Meier-Pauken published by Search Press https://www.searchpress.com/book/9781782216834/urban-sketching-step-by-step