Urban Sketch Blog
Tips, inspiration and stories from the world of urban sketching with artist and educator Ian Fennelly.
How each workshop builds better sketching decisions through control, context, and character.
Four weeks, one plan. Outline, colour, tone, detail. Key lessons and student insights from our live sketching experience.
Using Tone, Temperature, and Visual Variety
Struggling to make time for urban sketching? Learn how even 10 minutes a week can boost confidence, build habits, and reconnect you with your creativity.
Struggling with muddy or overworked watercolours? Learn a softer watercolour brush technique inspired by Ian Fennelly and practise it step-by-step with support inside Urban Sketch+.
Gifting a sketch is not about perfection. It is about sharing time, memories, and something genuinely personal.
Follow Ian Fennelly and his students on Day 2 in Edinburgh as they sketch iconic scenes and learn to see the city with new eyes.
Courage, Companionship, and Confidence Across Five Days in Seville
Confused about what size paper to use for urban sketching? This beginner-friendly guide explains A4, A3, and A2 sizes (plus inches), with tips to help you choose the right format for your time, space, and subject.
What changes when you really start looking?
A Practical Guide to Value, Worth, Time and Materials
How To Tell, When To Use, And Why It Matters
Five Days of Colour, Friendship, and Community
Discover how to capture a person’s character in their portrait.
Discover how inspiration from other sketchers can spark your own creativity. Learn how to borrow techniques without copying, grow your urban sketching style, and find confidence through community.
Discover a simple 5-step sketching method you can use for any subject. Learn how to sketch with confidence, develop your personal style, and bring everyday scenes to life with our beginner-friendly urban sketching courses.
The Stage That Can Make or Break Your Sketch: Mastering Detail in Urban Sketching
How four weeks of sketching together built confidence, knowledge, and a sense of achievement
Style doesn’t happen overnight - it’s already growing in your sketchbook, waiting for you to notice and embrace it.
A Guide to Sketching Details with Clarity and Mindfulness
Discover how to capture brickwork, paving, ironwork and road texture in urban sketching.
Explore how beginner sketchers can use detail to bring their art to life with simple, expressive detail techniques that feel personal, not perfect.
How to use tone in your sketches with layering techniques that blend watercolour energy and brush pen precision for confident urban sketches.
Learn how to use tone in your sketches to add depth, structure and realism. Discover simple techniques for creating contrast, shaping light and shadow, and bringing your urban scenes to life.
Sketchbooks, Castles and Confidence. Behind the scenes at our first sketching retreat of 2025.
Discover how to use water to create soft edges and atmosphere in your urban sketches. Learn watercolour techniques inspired by Ian Fennelly.
Missing colours from Ian Fennelly's watercolour palette? Try these practical swaps and colour mixing tips.
Discover why adding watercolour in the middle of your sketch - not the end - brings energy, depth, and looseness to your urban sketching. Learn how to paint like Ian Fennelly, with confidence and flow.
A3 or A4? Discover how sketchbook size impacts your urban sketching and how to choose what works best for you.
How Community Sparks Confidence, Creativity and Connection