Hi! I'm Taria, a travel sketcher from the UK, living in South Africa. I run a website called urbansketchingworld.com to help others start or improve their skills in urban sketching. I first discovered urban sketching in 2012 and since then have been hooked.
If you are interested in all things urban Sketching, including reviews, news, tutorials and FREE resources, please visit urbansketchingworld.com
⭐️ If you want to learn to sketch with total freedom, check out Pretty Sketchy TV: prettysketchy.tv
You can find my personal sketches on Instagram: instagram.com/tarias_sketchy_adventures
You should insist more in advice number one: forget details, PERSPECTIVE is what matters. In the same way you cannot play football or rugby if you are not in shape, you cannot sketch is you do not master perspective. I know that many people do not like to hear this, but "there is not royal way" in drawing as there isn't in Mathematics. Thanks for sharing not only your lessons learnt but your impressions. Both are very interesting.
I really liked this video. It gave me a better understanding of urban sketching. I noticed that many of the art pieces use no or very few shadows. Is this part of urban sketching or is it in an effort to simplify.
I'm an artist of 6 years going on 7, and just getting into urban art. I'd say to make the colours pop more and to give more effect. Sometimes though, shadows are used to make something pop..
Thank you for sharing your adventures. I love your work especially the colors you use. Moon glow is beautiful! So you use Daniel Smith exclusively? I look forward to seeing more of your art as I’ve joined Pretty Sketchy TV.
wonderful sketches! A4 suits you! I have always admired your art, you have always been a great artist, but...looking at these new sketches, it feels like you're experimenting a little more? using different colours, a different sketchbook format, more negtive space, a lot of partial buildings focusing on what attracts you to a specific view/building. loved the hint of backround with more diluted watercolours in one of the sketches, really making the building in the foreground pop. are you using more new colours at the moment? or only the moonglow (gorgeous, by the way!)? I am happpy for you, you're bavery pays off, dear Taria!
Thank you so much! I think it was nice to feel a bit more free with my sketching on this trip. I definitely think the A4 space helped. I have been working in a toned sketchbook with dry media for so long it was nice to splash around some watercolour! Yeh, I have a bit of a mish mash in my watercolour tin at the moment but I think pretty much Moonglow is the only new addition - and really its a refill after several months of having run out. I think the Stellenbosch itself just inspired this kind of style! I think it helps to leave more negative space when you have more space to play with if that makes sense? Thanks for your kind comments and for watching the video :) 🥰🙏
Loved this video thank you. Up until now my interest has been boats but that may change! Thanks for the commentary, and especially the lack of music. Interesting to see the different art materials used to create your colour. Food for thought for me.
Excellent, really enjoyed this video, good tips at the end. Jim Butler for me from these examples. On the web Neil Whitehead is my favourite, well worth checking out too.
You do a great job with your channel - I have been doing urban sketching in journals for more than thirty years - here is my latest journal: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nW01scWNVwM.htmlsi=nB6KKAX_0fA9CJf5
Excellent overview & very interesting history. 👏 I had a general sense of urbane sketching and I’ve always used it in exchange for plein air drawing too but wasn’t sure if that was technically accurate. Now it’s much clearer. Thank you for sharing 🫶🏼
Hi, Taria. I find your (and other Urban Sketchers) definition of 'Urban' to include farmhouses (and other non-built-up environs, which would correctly be classified as rural) rather curious: _What is the simple definition of urban? adjective. of, relating to, or designating a city or town: URBAN Definition & Meaning | Dictionary co m_ The same definition as applying to cities and towns comes up in the dictionary definitions I've researched and find my own understanding is confirmed. I also find the statement that we'll easily find a group nearby misleading. The nearest group to my town is 64kms away - over an hour away along a good, but hilly and bendy road and an hour's journey each way isn't possible. (There's no such thing as a long straight road aroud here!) Looking at the map, there are huge areas of France without a local group. I've lived here for eight years and go sketching in town (usually armed with a packed lunch, to be there for most of the day) once or twice a month and in all that time, haven't met a fellow sketcher, though I've had some lovely conversatios with passers-by from several different countries (we are a tourist location). I got quite excited when I discovered a Google link to someone, apparently a member, about 10kms from here (Sylvie, from Bretagne) with answers from two others, but it was from 2012, and not one is marked on the map. So, hey, yet again, I'm back to square one.
I am forever grateful I read your email that day about Auckland and made the snap decision to take a trip to follow a style of art I had barely touched before. The people and experiences it has brought into my life have been amazing. Buenos Aires is going to be a blast.
I’ve been told urban sketching is relatively new. I guess that depends on how one defines relatively. I started out early in my eighth grade year in school (around 1961 or 1962). Been doing it off and on ever since. You are correct as far as I am thinking in that it isn’t just ‘urban’ although I did start in my hometown. We had many older buildings that had advertisements painted on their outside walls as far back as before the start of the twentieth century. Most of those I will admit were hard to see due to the effects of aging. But if you looked hard enough you could still see what used to be very bright and flashy. I moved on to more rural scenes as soon as I had a bicycle and the ability to get out of town. I will agree my works then would today be called landscapes, but I did try to put something more than trees in my works. Eventually, I got to sketching the oil and gas fields and the equipment one finds there. Somewhere along the way I incorporated dip pens and India ink. After high school I slacked off in that I was in the Army and sketchbooks just did not fit too well with the uniforms and equipment, but I did sketch when I could. After the Army I returned to the oil fields and I brought my sketch books. Color started to enter my work. At first colored pencils were my main sources of color. Then I rediscovered watercolors and an entire new world seemed to open up. Today I use pencils, fountain pens, fine tipped markers, colored pencils and, of course, water colors. I watch videos such as yours for pointers and tips. It is a lot of fun, gets me outside, lets me record vacation trips in a more meaningful way than just photographs, and overall helps me to just relax. In short, Urban Sketching is not new and is not strictly urban.
Great overview! I agree on so many points. I do most of the sketchwalks here in San Francisco on Saturdays and also started a group on Thursdays.. we have over 4600 people in our SF Bay Area group. My challenge is finding new and interesting locations every Sat and Thurs and almost every other day for myself. SF is very sketch able with bridges, boats, Victorians, parks, etc. Cafe sketching is great when Karla the fog rolls in.. I will be teaching in Buenos Aires at the symposium this year. I am sure we will see each other. It was great to meet you in Auckland last year. I tell beginners the key is PRACTICE!!! Draw everyday.. that is how your work will evolve. Eileen
Ah, some non always black ink artists . I'm partial to Sketch Ink Lily over most others ... it's some sort of rich dark Brown. Gorgeous color of some sort of rich dark Brown. 😃Works great in a TWSBI Eco. Always in my sketch kit. Sometimes you just need a change. Thanks for the list.
Thank you for considering ultramarine blue as warm and pthalo blue as cool. Over 50 plus years ago, that was the way those blues were taught in many art schools and that was how I still see and react to them. The idea was that if you keep your yellow at the top of a color wheel (as the highest value) and violet/purple at the bottom (the lowest value) and you travel clockwise, you move down into cooler colors through warm oranges and reds into cooler violets cooler purples, then find the coolest blues and then head up into the warmth of greens and finally comev back up into your warmest yellows. It works perfectly well going in either direction and and actually is simply how you personally interpret any particular color as it relates to (morphs into) the colors next to the colors on either side. There are so many useful, but different, color systems at point in time which various artists consider to be the "correct" system that you could go crazy going from one to the next and then find that a new one has just been discovered (or invented). At this stage in my 75 years, I am happy to simply use which ever system works and I can enjoy learning about color as I need for a particular purpose at any time. Thanks for giving me the chance to vent about hard and fast rules. Happy painting, thanks for your enjoyable video, and best wishes.
I'm disappointed that your are pushing Domestika on this video - are you aware that they are scamming thousands of people out of US$99.99 in the form of a "subscription" that Domestika customers were never advised of or agreed to and have no chance of recovering it because you can't contact anyone at Domestika??? I'm watching your video because I also love Spanish sketchers, and I've been a member of USK in New Zealand for many years. I have the opportunity to take a course with Inma, Santi & Swasky. I was attracted to Domestika's site because of Inma's course that you talk about, I paid the fee for that course, and a few months later, totally unknown to me, Domestika hit my credit card for this "subscription" which is fraud and I have had no success in recovering my money. You probably don't believe me - but as I'm taking the time to inform you, please take the time to have a look at the facebook page called Domestika Scam which has hundreds of complainants who have all been robbed as I have. Domestika need to be shamed for what they are doing and I feel sorry for all the tutors who probably have no idea that this is going on.
