Liz Steel: looking is the work.
A contemporary sketcher’s encouragement to begin, and a small exercise in paying attention.
Read & try it ↗Sketchers
Follow the looking.
Nine contemporary sketchers and teachers. Visit their own illustrated work, listen to their ideas, then try a question on a subject in front of you.
Teoh Yi Chie: give a busy scene a structure.
Learning from a generous public teaching practice, then trying the problem in your own street.
Read & try it ↗
Gabriel Campanario: the drawing reports.
A founder’s work offers a useful question: what does the page tell us about this place?
Read & try it ↗
Shari Blaukopf: colour has structure.
Look at the whole arrangement before getting distracted by a lovely bit of paint.
Read & try it ↗Suhita Shirodkar: people doing things.
A figure becomes more informative when it has a relationship with the place.
Read & try it ↗
Stephanie Bower: space before detail.
Perspective becomes useful when it explains a place you actually want to draw.
Read & try it ↗
Marc Taro Holmes: let the brush begin.
Explore direct watercolour as a different set of decisions, rather than a shortcut around drawing.
Read & try it ↗
Maru Godàs: colour gets some room.
A reminder that an observed place can support more than one visual language.
Read & try it ↗
Lapin: the page can wander.
Follow a subject across a sketchbook without forcing everything into one polite rectangle.
Read & try it ↗Companion illustrations on these pages are by Mark C Grant and are credited as such. The linked creators’ work remains on their own sites and channels.
Your turn
A page of your own. A story to add.
Show your sketch, ask a question or tell us what you noticed. There’s room for the wonky windows too.
Pass it on
Know someone who’d enjoy this?
Send them the page. A useful idea is worth sharing.