Urban Sketching - One Point Perspective Made Easy

Perspective in sketching and drawing is one of those ‘scary’ words. It can make us not want to sketch a scene, because it immediately feels like it’s going to be a lot of work and effort.
But what if we could make perspective easy? What if we could make perspective work for us?
That is what I’d like to show you in this class!
Aims of this class
This class with be interactive – much more about doing and sketching than hours of theory. Though, there is some theory that is necessary to cover before we can get started.
So, expect this class to be 90% about learning whilst doing, and 10% about the background!
We will cover the following!
What is linear perspective?
What is ‘one point perspective’?
The meaning of ‘vanishing point’, ‘horizon line’ and ‘perspective lines’
Atmospheric perspective (which is too often forgotten!)
How to analyse and breakdown a scene
The importance of simplifying perspective
The importance of ‘breaking up’ perspective
Practically how to start a sketching, and how to build detail and emphasis
How your colours/watercolors can help build your perspective
And most importantly, we’ll learn by doing – so these learning points will all be practical and hands on through a guided sketch, which some brief exercises before to get warmed up!
Who Am I?
My name is Toby, known as Toby Urbansketch. I use loose line work and splashy colours to create sketches of my world. The streets, buildings, people and objects around me every day.
For me, sketching is all about the experience – I don’t like too much theory, I don’t tend to ‘practice’ very much, I just sketch, experiment and enjoy.
That’s what I’d like to do with you today as well, a little bit of theory, but really, we can learn almost everything just by sketching and having fun.
Suggested tools
For this class I’ll be using watercolour paper, a pencil, a ruler (just for demonstration purposes) and a pen with water proof ink. I’ll also use watercolours to bring life to my sketch.
I’ll do some brief demonstrations using my iPad – this is totally not necessary, you could either just observe the demonstrations OR you could print the reference photo and sketch on top if you want to sketch/draw along with me.
Suggested level
This class is aimed for beginner to intermediate sketchers – to give you the basic tools and ideas to get out there and start sketching those perspective-laden scenes without any of that fear or horror that ‘perspective’ can make us feel.
Audio credits:
Apero Hour Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttpcreativecommons.orglicensesby4.0