The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location

I came across this author on YouTube several years ago and enjoyed his work and his commentary on Urban Sketching. I also knew about this book for quite awhile, in fact I had it in my cart - save for later - bin for about six months and finally purchased it. I am impressed with this book because of the authors writing, I know, you say, 'but it's a book about sketching', and yes it is, but he talks you through his examples and writes about his art and subjects like you are sitting with him on location. I love how he describes his drawings as stories and graphic novels. He doesn't want to just document a scene, he guides you into being a storyteller through the pencil, pen and ink medium. Don't get me wrong, he definitely gives many solid tips on how to get to the story through how you use the pencil but he in essence is a teller of the story first of all. He guides you to making the viewer feel what you feel while sketching. He uses terms like, narrative, guided tour, a trail of breadcrumbs in describing his style. He leads you into the language of visual narrative with terms like, gradient of interest, eye magnet, placement, contrast and detail. When writing you're told to -'show don't tell'; but in Urban Sketching we actually do show by what we put on the page. But this author intimates that we should TELL with the sketch, leading the viewer into our composition. I like this book, I think you will as well.

I received this book from Amazon yesterday and it is a treasure chest of interesting advice very well illustrated in accessible tutorials. It is a joy and if you have not yet read it I recommend it v highly. His illustrations do just the things I Iove and I am sitting reading it muttering “Exactly!”, “Yes Yes!” under my breath. He concentrates on making satisfying images not on recording exactly what he sees in front of him. He is helped of course by being a talented draughtsman and having a genius for colour and composition. He has some very good, illustrated advice about using watercolours. Simple, practical tips which I wish I had know 40 years ago. Five stars for Mr Taro Holmes.

I like the no BS approach the author shows, and how he has divided the book into sections for measuring the right size of objects, ink drawing, watercolours with pencils and brushes, as well as practical tips and exciersises, coupled with various theories for how to plan your sketch, and how to draw the eye of the viewer to certain objects. The book is packed full of useful tips, techniques and art lessons, starting from the beginners to the advanced Urban Sketcher. Much recommended!

Un libro muy interesante con tecnicas y con imagenes muy faciles de seguir, con bastante contenido, sin duda es una buena compra.

I bought this book out of curiosity, and I'm pretty glad I did. I'm an art student, so a lot of the techniques explained in this book were already familiar, but I can also say that they are much more clearly explained in this book than whatever could have been taught to me in school (and in most other books I have). This book is full of good, simple, well-explained exercises, and it illustrates quite nicely another way to do art, with the whole "urban sketching" idea. Obviously, you can only learn that much about art from a book, and you'll learn more only by actually doing art, but this book is a good start for people looking to start drawing, even if they don't have much experience (and if they do have some experience, well, it's a good return to some basic rules and tools and techniques, and a nice new approach to try). I'd suggest this book mostly to beginners, because it covers a wide variety of things but doesn't go into too much details, which is good when you start, but you'd probably be better with another book if you're looking for info about a specific subject (anatomy, composition, etc.).