Ink Bottle Find Your Line Tutorial by Jen Dixon
Posted in Art Room

Find a Looser Sketching Style Tutorial

How adjusting your sketch speed or where you hold your pen helps you find your sketching style. My assessment of the Find Your Line tutorial by Jen Dixon, and what I discovered by adjusting my pen grip and speed to help me determine what lines feel right, and which ones feel forced or contrived. And How to develop a line style that feels natural.

Cambodia Kep Crab Market
Posted in Art Room Cambodia Ho Chi Minh City Otres Beach Vietnam

Sketching People from Travel Photos

If you can’t get out and sketch, Sketching People from Travel Photos is a great alternative. Especially when you review your sketches to learn from them. Here’s a selection of sketches from our Cambodian Trip.

Great Gesture Drawing Tips
Posted in Art Room

LoveLifeDrawing – 11 Steps to Great Gesture Drawing

This gesture drawing tutorial had some good tips for developing urban sketching people skills

Sketch of a group of people outside a bar
Posted in Art Room

Toby Urban Sketch – Adding People in your sketches

If you only have 15 minutes, try this YT tutorial from Toby Urban Sketch for 4 quick tips.

Sketching my Art Table
Posted in Art Room

Random Urban Sketches to end the year

It doesn’t matter what subject or object you draw. It’s all good practice. Here’s a random selection of mine.

O Nuno Urban Sketch
Posted in Art Room

2 Urban Sketchers I discovered this month

Here’s a couple of urban sketchers I discovered this month with simple sketching styles

Urban Sketch People
Posted in Art Room

365 Days of Urban Sketching People (Book 1)

The beginning of my 365 Day of Urban Sketching People. Follow along on my journey to master capturing people live.

Natural Wines Cabanas Urban Sketch in East Algarve Magazine
Posted in Art Room Cabanas de Tavira Portugal

My Sketch featured in East Algarve Magazine

My sketch of a local wine bar featured in East Algarve Magazine.

Tavira Gentes do Mercado Urban Sketch event
Posted in Art Room Europe Portugal Tavira

Urban Sketch Algarve Exhibition Tavira

My Algarve Urban sketches on show at a Tavira Market exhibition

Posted in Art Room

5 pens go sketching in Coimbra

Even for a quick little getaway, I still pack a sketch book and set of pens. Here’s what I took to Coimbra.

Small Urban Sketching People
Posted in Art Room

How to Draw Small Figures for your Urban Sketches

Here’s some tips for practicing sketching small and tiny figures to include in your urban sketches to add a sense of scale and context to the scene. Limiting your canvas size helps you to practice reducing the level of detail necessary. I created a list of tips that can be incorporated into your practice sessions, and share some of the challenges I encountered to help you resolve some of the hurdles you may face when sketching these tiny figures.

Side Street Conceicao
Posted in Art Room Conceição Portugal Tavira

Street Scene – Conceicao

I painted the same scene in two styles—Wobbly urban sketch and precise studio sketch.

Faro Architecture and street scenes
Posted in Art Room Europe Faro Portugal

First Train Trip to Faro

First train trip to explore Faro and photograph buildings and scenes that inspire me to sketch.

#tekenuurtje art challenge
Posted in Art Room

Tekenuurtje Weekly Art Challenge

I joined #tekenuurtje for the first time this week. It’s one of the few Draw This in Your Style challenges that features people.

Relish Portugal
Posted in Art Room Europe Portugal

Featured Artist in Relish Portugal Magazine

I am the featured article in this quarter’s magazine Relish Portugal. Check out my contribution here.

One week 100 People Sketch Challenge
Posted in Art Room California One Week 100 People Santa Monica US

One Week 100 People 2022 Sketch Challenge

More people sketches for my one week 100 challenge 2021. I sketched figures on public transport, at cafes and at the local farmer’s market. I also had a go at a bit of reportage.

Suhita Shirodkar Craftsy Class
Posted in Art Room

Urban Sketching Figures with Suhita Shirodkar

My Sketcher Spotlight on urban sketcher Suhita Shirodkar, and a review of her figure sketching made simple class. Looking at line of action, drawing verbs, and exaggerating gestures. It’s all about identifying shapes, and making your figures expressive and loose

Travel Map artwork with images and text in the shape of Cambodia. With the activities and sights we saw in Cambodia. Illustrative style in ink and watercolour
Posted in 365 Days of Sketching People #1 Art Room Cambodia Otres Beach Phnom Penh Siem Reap

Travel Sketches from my Workaway Trip to Cambodia

A collection of travel sketches from Cambodia that I did a couple of years after the trip, using photos I took during our Workaway adventures. Ink sketches of buildings, people, beaches, and

Sylvie Sunshine Life's a Beach
Posted in Art Room Online

The Launch of Sylvie Sunshine

Introducing Sylvie Sunshine I introduced Sylvie Sunshine in my guest post for Romancing the Genres, and after getting some positive…

The California Feetwarmers
Posted in Art Room California Los Angeles US

Swing in the Park

Sketching at a Sunday concert series in Santa Monica with The California Feetwarmers.

Sneaky Art Podcast
Posted in Art Room

Urban Sketching Podcast: Sneaky Art

Looking for a quality podcast about urban sketching?

Trees and Foliage can be overwhelming to Paint
Posted in Art Room

Forget Technical and Get Creative with your Watercolours

How not to get overwhelmed with TMI about the technical side of watercolour.

Culver City Urban Sketching
Posted in Art Room California Los Angeles US

People Sketches: May

A collection of people I’ve encountered and sketched during my walks around Culver City in May.

Blind Contour
Posted in Art Room

Blind Contour Portraits May

Blind Contour Sketches for my 365 days of portrait and people sketches