Sketching Your World: Exploring Composition and a Dramatic Sense of Depth

Sketching your world isn't about talent, it's about principles and techniques anyone can learn. In this class, you'll learn to create fresh, lively line and wash sketches with dynamic compositions and a real illusion of depth from a master urban sketching instructor. Composition and depth are the essence of on-location sketching—using editing, foreground/middle ground/background, overlapping, line weight and other techniques to recreate the real life, 3-dimensional scenes you see in front of you on a flat sketchbook page using only a pen and some basic knowledge. It’s not magic; these are relatively simple techniques you can master.

 You’ll learn the essentials of composition and creating depth for urban and travel sketching:

• How to edit a scene to best tell your story,
• How to create a convincing foreground, middle ground and background,
• How to simulate atmospheric depth in your sketches,
• How overlapping and line weight help imply depth and distance,
• How to combine and balance these techniques to create a dramatic sense of depth.

There's even a bonus lesson on using dramatic darks to create sketches with impact, and 9 downloadable reference sheets to enrich your learning experience.

 This is a class for all skill levels from beginners to professionals. The techniques are drawn from Jim’s decades of on-the-spot sketching and teaching experience that have taken him to great cities and landscapes in 45 countries across the globe. By the end of the class, the lessons will be your own, and you’ll be sketching the places you live and travel with new skills and confidence. Come on, let’s do this!

• Introduction
• Your Class Project
• Tools We'll Use
• Composition: Editing
• Composition: The Rule of Thirds
• Composition: Get Balanced
• Where's Your Area of Emphasis?
• Foreground, Middle Ground, Background
• Diminishing Size and Detail
• Overlapping and Line Weight
• Atmospheric Depth
• Final Sketch Composition
• Fleshing Out the Drawing
• Bonus: Dramatic Darks
• Watercolor for Emphasis
• Conclusion