Urban Sketching:
Composition Shapes
Before you draw the outline, impose one very simple shape on the scene. These exercises show four of them, with sketches from London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Oxford, Sicily, Paris and Porto, and a quick Paris café sketch to show the rule of thirds working in practice.
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What’s Inside
The square
When a scene is basically a square, that square becomes the basic structure you work from. A London pub, where everything curves but the structure is a square, and a bridge in Amsterdam that is a view through a square tunnel.
The rectangle
A narrow passageway with an arch in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, and a gate from a rural sketching course. Rectangles go portrait or landscape and organise detail and colour round one simple shape.
The cross
A cross from an Oxford college, a bike and a column top communicating with each other, and a skewed cross in a Sicilian passage.
The rule of thirds
Divide the page into thirds each way, giving nine sections. A bistro in the Latin Quarter in Paris and the Ribeira in Porto. The lines aren’t literal, they’re suggested by window edges, a bent road sign, a tyre, a wall.
Rule of thirds exercise
A quick sketch of a Paris café with red awnings, on a street that wraps round itself. Two pens divide the page, then the sketch is built inside the framework. It’s a guide, not nine identical squares.
£8
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Questions about this bundle
What is in Urban Sketching: Composition Shapes?
5 short video exercises: The square; The rectangle; The cross; The rule of thirds; Rule of thirds exercise. It costs £8 once and you keep lifetime access.
Do I need to have done a painting workshop first?
No. A bundle is a separate, self-contained set of exercises on one skill. If you later want to see skills like this used in a whole painting, my painting workshops do exactly that.
When can I enrol?
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Can I get a refund?
Yes, within 14 days of purchase, as long as you have not gone beyond the introduction or first lesson, because by then you have received the digital content. Email mike@artyfactor.com with the bundle name and the email you enrolled with. The full wording is in the Refund and returns policy.
How long do I have access?
It is one payment of £8 and you keep lifetime access.
Where this leads
Want to see the whole picture?
This bundle covers one skill. My painting workshops show how skills like this come together in a finished painting, one stage at a time.
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