Sketch and the City - online course
This is a recorded version of this course. All content is already activated and ready to be enjoyed. Once you purchase the course, you will need to wait for the access email to be sent manually to you. Depending on the time of day and your time zone, there may be a few hours between purchase and email. Please type your email address carefully and check your junk folder.
Continued access period: LIFETIME.
SYLLABUS: This interdisciplinary course has been formed from the barrage of novel exercises I have picked up or developed over the years in design schools and architecture studios. As well as responding to the buildings, streets, people, and green spaces that make up any city, we will look for the details that make a place distinctive: signage, scale, infrastructure, clues to location, and so on. Some lessons will prompt you to think more deeply about the emergence, growth and future of cities, or to respond abstractly to fictional cities. I will share tips and techniques to help you observe and draw elements of cities, covering the practical aspects of graphic communication, such as perspective, proportion, shadows, reflections, form, and so on. We will also explore some fascinating concepts and movements relating to urban places, such as psychogeography, semiotics, ecological urbanism, De Stijl, and Flâneurism, and whole theoretical approaches that attempt to redefine the notion of The City, such as The Walkable City, Sustainable City, and Equitable City. Finally, each lesson will reference a relevant hero: either a key player in understanding cities or an artist whose work will inspire you in your quest to sketch the city.
FORMAT: a new session (ten in total) was uploaded to a course page on my website every weekday during the live run of this course. Each daily session includes a learning objective, topic overview, contextual description, and video tutorial. In addition, two short bonus films, with briefs for weekend activities, were shared on the two Friday afternoons during the run. Content will remain accessible for the "lifetime" of the course. When I eventually observe that the course is no longer being accessed by students, I will email and give you four months notice of its retirement.
MATERIALS:
• Sketchbook (A5 or larger, with cartridge paper pages)
• Ruler, scissors, pencil sharpener, eraser, 2 small binder/bulldog clips, low-tack masking tape, double-sided adhesive tape, sharp knife, cutting mat, and paper glue
• Black fineliner pens (with a range of nib widths)
• Graphite pencils (HB to very soft)
• Watercolour paint (red, yellow, and blue, plus any other colours)
• White plate or palette for mixing colours
• Watercolour brushes (flat and round in a range of sizes)
• Fountain pen (with soluble ink in any dark colour)
• A selection of the following: pastel pencils, aquarelle sticks or pencils, and acrylic markers (any colours, but at least one light, one dark, and one mid tone in each)
• White fineliner pen
• White paint (gouache, bleed proof white, or a good quality watercolour)
• Printed/found collage papers
• Tracing paper
• A couple of loose A3 (or equivalent) sheets of each of the following: watercolour paper, cartridge paper, black paper, tonal paper (such as brown Kraft paper, or Mi-Teintes, Rico, or Tiziano paper in earthy colour)
• Scraps of lightweight card (like the sort from a tea bag or cracker box)
• Adhesive foam pads (Sticky Fixers from Sellotape is one brand, I’m sure others are available). These are for attaching paper shapes to a sheet of paper in such a way that a shadow is created, giving a 3D effect to an assemblage.
COPYRIGHT: all content is my own. Bookings are for personal, individual use only. Sharing and reproducing course content is prohibited. If you are a teacher looking for lessons, please contact me to discuss the various options available for bringing me (electronically or in person) into your classroom.
