5 Online Architectural Illustration Courses for Beginners

Learn the basics of urban and architectural sketching using pencils, watercolors, and digital tools to create striking images

Learning architectural illustration techniques can open your eyes to a wide range of creative experiences—both professionally and personally. A skill used by architecture firms to create visual representations of an architect’s plans for a structure or space, architectural illustration is often one of the first steps for designers to communicate their ideas and vision.

However, sketching architecture as a purely artistic endeavor is also a wonderful way to experience a place, discovering new details at each glance.

You can capture the depth and feeling of a building or city scene using pencils, watercolor, ink, or digital tools to translate that onto your page. And then, there’s urban sketching, the practice of drawing what is around you in your sketchbook.

Below, we've compiled a list of courses in which experts share their techniques, tips, and tools for architectural illustration projects to help you start from scratch.

Whether you want to depict a cityscape using digital and analog techniques or discover the art of urban sketching by using perspective and composition techniques to bring your ideas to life, enjoy and be inspired!

1. Architectural Illustration: Capture a City’s Personality, a course by Carlo Stanga

Have you ever felt moved while walking through a city, and compelled to express how it makes you feel? This feeling of serendipity can be difficult to communicate in words, but according to artist and architect Carlo Stanga, it is much easier to transmit through an illustration of the place itself.

Architectural illustration is a wonderful way to connect with the mysterious attraction of urban spaces, and in this course, Carlo will teach you how to capture a city's personality.

He shares his methodology, which combines both analog and digital methods, to help you discover your own illustration style, develop a visual language, and depict an urban space that is special to you.

2. Architectural Sketching with Watercolor and Ink, a course by Alex Hillkurtz

Storyboard artist Alex Hillkurtz finds a sense of fulfillment in discovering the hidden corners of the city that architectural sketching allows. You can find some of his storyboarding work in films like Argo, Almost Famous, and It's Complicated, among many others.

In his course, Architectural Sketching with Watercolor and Ink, Alex will show you his approach to capturing the depth and feeling of a place using watercolor and ink and translating that onto your page. After all, it’s one thing to depict a scene accurately, and another entirely to portray the character and mood of a place.

You'll learn to sketch and use watercolors to infuse your paintings with new life, combining loose ink sketching with watercolor to recreate beautiful buildings that leap off the page.

3. Architectural Sketching for Urban Illustrations, a course by yolahugo

Capturing the essence of urban spaces, their features, and architecture requires technique, practice, and above all, emotional awareness. Award-winning illustrator Hugo Barros (yolahugo on social media) is a professional architect with a passion for urban sketching. Drawing every day for the past decade, the streets are his main muse.

In his course on architectural sketching for urban illustrations, discover key concepts and techniques for composition, perspective, and applying color to create an urban illustration that reflects the nature of the space, the rhythm of the streets, and the different stories they have to tell.

Discover the art of urban sketching by using perspective and composition techniques to bring your ideas to life.

4. Urban Sketching: Express Your World in a New Perspective, a course by Lapin

Your everyday life is an endless source of inspiration when it comes to sketching. In fact, urban sketcher Lapin believes that everything is sketchable and that a great urban sketcher not only depicts what is in front of them but also conveys the feeling of a place.

Through constant practice and curious observation, Lapin has mastered the ability to tell a story with his sketches, working with clients including Air France, Le Parisien Magazine, PlayStation, Heineken, Marks & Spencer, Monoprix, Peugeot, Porsche, and more.

In his course, Urban Sketching: Express Your World in a New Perspective, Lapin teaches you how to tell the stories of your everyday life using fineliners, watercolors, and our unique perspective. See how to sketch landmarks from observation, discover the curvilinear perspective, and express original ideas with depth and feeling.

5. Watercolor Travel Journal, a course by Alicia Aradilla

For urban sketch artist Alicia Aradilla, keeping a watercolor journal is a way to create unforgettable memories of your travel experiences by recreating the landmarks you see in an artistic and personal way.

Alicia started her artistic journey by leaving her graphic design job to travel the world and document her adventures. She now has over 110k followers on Instagram who admire her sketches full of color and originality.

In this course, you'll learn how to create a watercolor travel journal by composing landscapes, exploring colors, and creating elements like shadows, pencil sketches, and text to add personality and style to your work.

If these courses have sparked your interest in drawing and architecture, you can discover even more inspiration by exploring all of Domestika’s online architectural illustration courses.

You may also like:

- How Can I Become an Architectural Illustrator?
- What Is Architectural Perspective, and How Do I Use It in Drawing?
- What is Architectural Sketching and What Are Its Origins?
- Iconic Buildings Around the World and the Stories behind Them