At the Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in Toulouse this year I started a severe fascination about drawing wonky lines, and I wondered why a confident loose, quick, and wonky line looks so much better than a thoughtfully slowly rendered straight line. The Laws of Gestalt Psychology help to explain this phenomenon and also help to quiet your inner critic.

To create a looser looking sketch you use your watercolour to lose your edges or replace your ink lines. Here’s a look at how using paint splatters or faded edges helps to create a looser looking urban sketches.

So you’ve started your figures too long on the page, and you don’t have room to sketch the feet? It’s a common problem. Here’s a review of how to use ink lines and watercolour to approach the problem of running out of room at the bottom of the page when people sketches. My thoughts on which approach works best, and what doesn’t look good.