Reading · Start Bay Notebooks - Sketching Urban Perspective

The principals of urban sketching (head height, vanishing points etc.) are pretty established and fairly straightforward if what you are sketching is on flat ground.

If you live somewhere, like I do, that has a lot of hills, things become a little more complicated. And, in a lot of cases it just can’t be avoided if we want a true reflection of an area.

I have developed a process to follow when sketching up and down hills and it involves a lot of the same principals as sketching on the flat. The eye line / horizon line will be in the same place and the angles of the buildings will still angle up or down to the horizon line.

It does mean that there will be an alternative vanishing point for the road, either higher or lower than the eye line vanishing point, depending on whether you are looking up or down a hill, BUT the horizontal lines of the buildings will still angle up or down to the original vanishing point on the eye line / horizon.

If this sounds a bit complicated still, it’s really not. I will elaborate on this in a future post for paid subscribers and it is also something I cover in Sketching Workshops.

The thing to remember is:
ROADS MAY SLOPE BUT BUILDINGS DON’T
(except in rare circumstances like the leaning tower of Pisa)

The last four pictures shown are sketches of Modbury, South Devon which is about five miles from where I live. Hopefully you can tell when things are going up or down hill.

For years I have been using coffee and red wine to add colour to sketches. But I have decided to start adding watercolour like I always used to. Find out the reasons, and how I get on, in my next post.

Urban Sketching the Ups and Downs

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