Ian’s Map of York: How to Find Five Sketches in One Small Patch

Ian found all five York workshops a few minutes’ walk apart. The trick wasn’t finding new places. It was standing somewhere new.

You find a view you love, you sketch it, and then what? Most of us pack up and go looking for the next good spot, convinced it’s somewhere else.

Ian’s map of York says otherwise.

He drew it while we were filming the Ye Olde Sketch Course, with all five workshops numbered in yellow. Before anyone packs it for a day out, he’s very clear: “it’s not done to scale and please don’t use this to try and find your way around York, use Google Maps instead because they’re far better.”

What it does do, in his words, “is it gives you an idea of where all the locations are and how close together they are.”

All five are a few minutes’ walk apart. Two of them share the same pair of buildings. Two of them share the same cathedral. Ian didn’t find five subjects. He found five places to stand, and each one handed him a different job.

Where You Stand Changes What You Draw

That’s the idea worth taking away from this map. When you move, you don’t just get a new view. You get a new problem to solve.

Close up, the job is choosing your edges and the details.
From further back, it’s how the buildings sit together.
From a long way off, the street does the work and the landmark becomes a few small marks.

Here’s how that played out round York.

Stop 1, Close Up: Frame It First

Little Shambles is the closest Ian gets to his subject: two old shopfronts seen almost face on, one of them the ghost shop where we bought Creepy Richard. (Look closely and you’ll find Richard on the map too, saying “Boo!”)

When you’re this close, the edges matter. Ian holds the scene in with a corner wall and lamp on the left and an overhanging timber building on the right. “The composition of this has a really cool kind of framing device,” he says, and that’s what he sketches first. The medieval story sits in the middle, held in place.

For your sketch: before you draw the thing you love, find what’s going to hold it in on each side. A lamppost, a corner, a sign.

Stop 2, Turn Round: Look at How They Sit Together

A short walk away in King’s Square, Ian is “looking back at that elevation of different buildings, and you could just see around the corner the Shambles.” It’s the corner he’s just walked out of.

From here, no single building is the star. It’s about three of them together, and how their rooflines answer each other. Ian points out “those two lines at the top which are kind of like echoing each other in a symmetrical kind of way.”

For your sketch: when you step back, stop looking at buildings one at a time. Look for the shapes they make together, the rooflines that lean towards each other or repeat.

Stop 3, A Landmark Up Close: Put Something in Front of It

York Minster is the big postcard view, and up close, a big landmark is a lot. Ian picked the spot where a tree covers the right-hand side, because it “breaks up the facade of the church.” On the map film he admits he left it off and “should have drawn the tree.”

The tree does two things. It hides part of the stonework, so there’s less to draw, and it brings in what Ian calls “different kind of textures and colours and patterns” next to all that stone. For the stonework that’s left, Ian’s “simulating the effect of what I can see, looking for repeated patterns” instead of drawing every window.

For your sketch: if a landmark’s overwhelming, move until something’s in front of it: a tree, a lamppost, a corner of a building.

Stop 4, Step Back: The Same Buildings Become a Street

This is the stop that shows the whole idea best. “You can see from number four how close it is to number one,” Ian says, because the buildings next to the ghost shop are in both. “Those two buildings feature in both of those sketches, the first one and the fourth one.”

In Workshop 1 they’re the whole subject, face on. In Workshop 4 they’re on the right, one part of a long street running away from you. They’re smaller, the detail matters less, and the perspective of the whole street takes over. It’s the hardest of the five, and it comes fourth on purpose, so you’ve already drawn those buildings once before you meet them again.

(More on drawing a street like this in How to Sketch an Old Street That Leans.)

For your sketch: sketch a building you like, then walk back down the street and find it again. Draw the street first and let the building be one part of it.

Stop 5, Far Away: Let the Small Marks Do It

The last stop is the Minster again, but now it’s at the far end of Lower Petergate, where “you can just see the two towers poking up in the background.” No colour, no brush pen, just line.

From here the street carries you to the cathedral, and tiny marks do the rest. Ian adds small blacks to the far-off window panes and loves the result: “these little tiny pops of black for these window panes are so good because they give a great sense of distance because the scale of them is so small.”

For your sketch: when something’s far away, draw less of it, smaller. A few tiny dark marks will push it back further than any amount of careful detail.

Try It: Five Sketches From One Patch

You don’t need York. Pick one short stretch of street, in person or on Google Street View, and stay there.

Close up. Sketch one building you like, and find something to frame it on each side first.
Turn round. Sketch what’s behind you, looking for rooflines that echo each other.
Find a landmark. A church tower, a clock, a big tree. Get close and put something in front of it.
Step back. Find your first building again from down the street, as part of the view.
Go far. Find the landmark from as far away as you can still see it, and use the smallest marks you can.

Then do what Ian did and draw yourself a little map of where you stood. Number your stops. A ghost in the corner is optional.

Ready to learn more?

The Ye Olde Sketch Course takes you to every stop on Ian’s map, from the ghost shop on Little Shambles to the towers at the end of Lower Petergate. Each sketch is broken into small steps you can follow at home, with Ian’s pre-sketches filmed on location first.

About the Artist

Ian Fennelly focuses on capturing urban spaces and environments by drawing the places where people have been without actually including them.

His process involves layering watercolors, brush pens, and liners to build depth, texture, and detail, allowing them to fully immerse in the scene while adapting to changes in their surroundings.