Watercolor Urban Illustration: Portray your City

Watercolor Urban Illustration: Portray your City

“You’ve now come to the end of this course. Thank you so much for taking the time! For my course project, I chose to draw the shopfront of a bookstore in Dordrecht, in the Netherlands, but you are welcome to choose any shopfront you like. Before saying goodbye, here is an example of how your process should be: The Reference To begin, find inspiration! You can look around your town, go through your travel photos, or find inspiration online. Look at the world around you; there are so many beautiful buildings, even in your hometown.

The Sketch Once you’ve selected your reference photo, start by using a pencil and ruler to sketch the outline of the storefront. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect; it’s about drawing the basic outlines of the building. Look at it as the skeleton of your art piece. The Drawing Draw with a fine liner the structure of the building, the elements in front, and the rest of the details. And add shading finally with a larger size fine liner. At this stage, your illustration looks even without color, a proper piece of art. The Painting Add a basic layer of watercolor paint on the larger surfaces of the illustration. At this stage, it's better to use a very watery paint, almost transparent. When it's dry, you can add other layers. Try to paint over as much white background as possible. After that, you can paint the details. The Final Details Add shading and small details with a white pen if necessary. And draw the letters on your sign. When you’re happy with your artwork, upload it by clicking "Create your project." I would love to see what you've created! And check out what other students made. You can even participate in the forum and comment on each other's work. I always love to see the different styles and how other artists work. You can learn so much from each other. I can't wait to see what you make! See you soon.”

Partial transcription of the video

“Hello and thank you for joining me in this course. My journey in watercolour illustration has gone full circle. I learned my techniques with the Domestika course, and now I'm able to share it with you. I specialize in urban illustration, and I think it never gets boring. As a final project, I showed you how to illustrate a shopfront using a reference photo. For that, the first step was to choose a good image. Try to follow the proportion of the elements in your photo and translate them into watercolour paper. In this stage, it's necessary to use a ruler to assess the proportions and draw th...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Watercolor Urban Illustration: Portray your City

• Level: Beginner
• 98% positive reviews (197)
• 13000 students
• 4 units
• 15 lessons (2h 45m)
• 5 downloads

• Category

  Illustration

• Areas

  Architectural Illustration, Drawing, Painting, Watercolor Painting