Ye Olde Sketch Course
Anyone can draw an old building. This is how you make it look old.
Five workshops with Ian Fennelly in the medieval streets of York, England, a city with more than 500 recorded hauntings.
- Follow along at home
- New Colours: Sepia and indigo
- Instant lifetime access
Course Details
Ian Fennelly is famous for bringing buildings to life with bright colours. In Ye Olde Sketch Course, he does the opposite.
You’ll start the course by making two shopfronts look their age, and you’ll finish it with a whole ancient street in your sketchbook.
Workshop 1 is the gentlest. You paint two timber shopfronts on a corner and leave the rest of the street out. From there you take on more old timber buildings, and then a stone cathedral.
By Workshop 4, the most demanding one, you’re sketching the Shambles, a street over 600 years old, and making it look its age.
And Ian shows you how to do all of this with only four colours in each workshop.
And you don’t need to travel to one of England’s most haunted cities to learn this. You can follow along with Ian from home, as he teaches you his tricks and techniques for sketching old buildings and making them look old on your page.
Why the old buildings Most People draw come out looking like new-builds
Think of the oldest building you know. Dark beams that bend. Stone that’s been rained on for hundreds of years.
You sit down and draw it. You take your time over the beams and the windows, then you paint it the colours you can see. But it comes out looking like it was built last year.
And that happens not only to beginner sketchers, but even experienced artists, who can draw buildings accurately, can still end up with something that looks new.
You see, the drawing was never the problem. Age comes from three things: the colours you mix, the tone you lay over them, and the detail you add on top.
Ye Olde Sketch Course teaches you all of this in step-by-step detail.
Five workshops, gentlest first
Each workshop starts with two lessons on pre-sketches. You’ll watch Ian stand in each historic street and work out the entire scene before you draw a line. Then you’ll begin the full training.
Here are the five workshops you’ll get in Ye Olde Sketch Course:
Workshop 1: Little Shambles
Your first sketch is two timber shopfronts on a corner of Little Shambles, a tiny side street running downhill off the Shambles.
From the kerb where Ian works, you look at two medieval buildings falling away down the slope, their beams running off in every direction and their windows full of reflections.
Under your feet are old cobbles, and on the corner there’s a sign so faded you can’t tell what it says, so Ian leaves it blank.
On the same corner is the ghost shop where Ian bought a handmade ghost called Creepy Richard. It’s a busy spot, and hundreds of people walk past while he sketches.
On one shopfront, you’ll see why he drew two beams where there’s only one, and why he added a touch of red to the scene.
By the end of Workshop 1, you’ll have both shopfronts in your sketchbook looking their age, by learning how to mix a palette of just 4 colours. It’s the first time Ian has taught how to use sepia.
After this, you can do the same with the old buildings where you live.
Workshop 2: King’s Court
Next, you put down the colours of old timber in the right order, on three crooked buildings at King’s Court, a small open space at the top of the Shambles.
These buildings went up hundreds of years before town planning came along, so they all go off in different directions. One has a pitched roof and a pinky-peach front that bows out. A skinny one leans over beside it. In the window of the shop at the entrance to the Shambles, you can see hundreds of coins.
Then a man behind you starts playing classical guitar. He gets louder, and moves on to Metallica. Ian talks you through the pre-sketch anyway.
This is real urban sketching.
And one thing he says here sums up this course. Some of the bricks at the bottom are crumbling. That’s the worst thing that could happen to any house, but it’s good for your sketch. And there’s one bit he paints with no paint at all.
After this workshop, you can paint any old house, putting down a palette of just 4 colours, which includes indigo for the first time, to capture the ancient timber and brick.
And you’ll know the technique for painting ground that looks real enough to walk on.
Workshop 3: York Minster
Now you move from timber to stone, and find out where the darks go on a building the size of a cathedral. The Minster’s huge stained-glass window and two towers rise behind a tree that’s dark at the bottom and bursts out at the top.
An old brick building sweeps in on your left. Just as Ian starts on the cathedral, you can hear the bells.
Ian says the builders and stonemasons went to such pains to get the cathedral right, hundreds of years ago, that he doesn’t want to come along and mess it up. He’s grateful to whoever planted the tree, though. It saves him drawing so much of a building that’s the same on both sides.
For the stone, he mixes in a colour he can’t see in the scene. From where you stand, the tree is darker than the cathedral. In Ian’s sketch it’s the other way round, on purpose.
You’ll come away from this workshop with your own sketch of York Minster achieved with a mix of Winsor violet, green gold, sepia, and manganese blue.
And you’ll know the steps for tackling big, complicated buildings like this – without drawing every stone.
Workshop 4: The Shambles
This is the one where a whole street of old houses goes into one sketch. You’re looking straight down the Shambles from right outside the ghost shop.
This was once the street where York’s butchers sold their meat, and it’s even mentioned in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book. Now it looks like something straight out of Harry Potter.
The cobbles slope away so the rain runs off, and dozens of signs hang over your head. Ian wonders aloud how much history one old arched beam has seen.
There’s a stretch of this street that Ian finds dull, so he shows you how to keep your drawing simple and let the colour do the work instead. Then he demonstrates how to make parts of your sketch look mysterious and a bit ghostly.
The sketch you complete is the Shambles itself with a mixture of 4 colours, including sepia. So the next time a row of old houses is in front of you, you’ll know where to start and how to achieve an effect like this.
Workshop 5: Lower Petergate
In the final workshop, you put the paints away. You’ll draw an old street in black pen only, looking along Lower Petergate to York Minster.
Pointy gables line the street as it narrows away from you, and at the far end a white building and a small brown one sit under the Minster’s two towers. A car turns up the moment Ian says the road is clear, and a van blocks part of his view.
Ian decides that black and white suits York, because it’s how we tend to look back at the past. As for the Minster, he deliberately draws it bigger than it is.
You finish with Lower Petergate on your page, capturing the perspective perfectly with not a drop of paint on it. And Ian shows you how to use pens to give you a range of tones.
On a day when the only thing in your bag is a pen, you’ll know you can still sketch an old building.
If you're new to sketching, old buildings forgive a wobbly line
Old buildings are forgiving subjects. Their beams bow and their walls lean, so a wobbly line belongs in scenes like this.
The lines you put down first stay in your sketch and become the grain of the wood or the bend of a roof. So, if you’re brand new to urban sketching you can start with the lines you draw today, wobbles and all.
You take the workshops at your own pace, pausing and going back over any step as often as you like.
How Ian captures age
He takes two colours that sit opposite each other on the colour wheel, the way blue sits opposite orange, and mixes them so they calm each other down.
Get this right and what’s left is the brown and grey of old timber. Then he adds the darks, a touch of white so a wall looks solid, and pen lines for the grain in the beams.
Many of our courses already teach this. But knowing how much indigo, when to stop, and which colour to keep back for the light is what makes Ye Olde Sketch Course different to anything else we’ve created before.
For example, in Workshop 2 you’ll watch him run Burnt Sienna into wet indigo and see the instant effect it has. By the end of that workshop you’ll know how to do it and why it works.
What you’ll be able to do after this training
Across these five comprehensive workshops, you’ll learn:
After this course, you’ll be able to sit down in front of any old timber house, stone building, or ancient street, and make your sketch look as old as the place itself.
Free Bonuses
Bonus 1: Ian’s York Sketchbook
( Value)
Turn the pages of Ian’s sketchbook with him as he takes you on a tour through all five of his finished York sketches, one after another.
Along the way, he tells you the thinking behind the colours he chose for this course.
Then come The Ones that Got Away, three scenes Ian found in York and decided not to draw for the course:
– Minster Gates. A narrow passage of old buildings with York Minster rising behind it. Ian had it planned as a workshop, until something got in the way.
– The Shambles, from across the street. Only a few steps from where Ian sketched Workshop 4, but everything swings the other way. Ian shows you how to take what you learned in Workshop 4 and use it here.
– Barley Hall. A beautiful medieval townhouse, the kind of place you’d stop to admire on vacation. Ian took one look and walked past it. In this bonus training, you’ll find out why.
Each one comes with Ian’s reference photo. So when you’ve finished the five workshops, you have three more old York scenes to sketch on your own, using everything you’ve learned.
Bonus 2: Ghosts & Tales of York
( Value)
York has been collecting stories for over six hundred years. In this bonus, Ian tells you some of the best.
– The Shambles walk. Walk the length of the Shambles with Ian. He reads you the plaque that tells you how far back the street goes, finds the official home of York’s Guild of Spookologists, and points out the shop that must not be named.
– Two Tales from York. Two stories told on the Shambles, standing outside the houses where they happened. One is a sad one. The other starts with a stormy night and a cup of tea, and you’ll want to hear how it ends.
– Creepy Richard. Rebecca queues for half an hour outside York’s ghost shop to bring home Creepy Richard, one of its handmade ghosts. Then Ian tells you who Richard was: a map maker in the 1400s who made one mistake. Find out what it was, what it cost him, and why he still haunts the people who visit York.
– The hand-drawn map. Ian shows you where all five workshops sit on his hand-drawn map of the city, and how close together they are. Look out for his portraits of Creepy Richard, the first ghost he’s ever sketched.
– The outtakes. The moments that didn’t make the workshops, including Ian’s short lesson on taking off a bracelet with four brushes in your hand.
Urban Sketchers Feedback Gallery
( Value)
Buy this course and you’ll also gain access to our thriving online feedback gallery.
This is a safe and private place where urban sketchers of all abilities can share their work without judgement – while getting positive, constructive feedback from supportive, like-minded sketchers who are all rooting for you!
There’s no better place to learn, overcome challenges and build your confidence and skills than the Urban Sketch Feedback Gallery.
Win the sketch Ian makes in Workshop 1
In Workshop 1, Ian teaches you how to sketch Little Shambles, from the first pen line to the last touch of colour.
One person who joins this week will have Ian's signed, original sketch shipped to their door.
It's Ian's original, signed by him and drawn on the street itself for this course. Two old shopfronts, beams running off in every direction, reflections in the window, a lamp, and an old sign nobody can read.
There's only one. Join Ye Olde Sketch Course by 11.59pm on Sunday 1 November and you're in the draw.
And it isn't the only prize. There are two more in the draw, and we'll tell you what they are later in the week.
Proof Ian's Methods Work:
Over 100,000 people have taken Ian’s courses, with hundreds of 5-star reviews posted to trusted sites like Trustpilot:
become The sketcher who can make an old street look old
One day you’ll find yourself in an old street, on your travels or close to home. Timber beams bent with age, upper floors leaning out over the cobbles.
You’ll feel how old it is the moment you see it. And after Ye Olde Sketch Course, that feeling comes home in your sketchbook.
You’ll know which four colours to reach for and how to mix them. More than that, you’ll know how to get the age of a place onto the page, so the timber, the stone and the whole street look as old on paper as they do in front of you.
Show that sketch to someone and they won’t need to be told it’s old. They’ll see it straight away.
Ian put it best, standing in the Shambles: “you’re learning about the past while you’re drawing in the moment.”
This is the first time Ian has taught specific methods for how to make old buildings look old in any of our courses. And you’ll only find it in Ye Olde Sketch Course.
Start Today
INSTANT LIFETIME ACCESSOnly:
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The Ye Olde Urban Sketch Course: five on-location workshops in York
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Pre-sketch training before every sketch: nine lessons, in the street with Ian
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BONUS 1: Ian's Sketchbook Lessons ( Value)
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BONUS 2: Ghosts & Tales of York ( Value)
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BONUS 3: Free Access to our Urban Sketchers Feedback Gallery ( Value)
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Free Lifetime Course Updates
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Forever Access (it never expires)
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30-Day Money Back Guarantee
Frequently Asked Questions
The course has been designed for beginners to advanced artists who want to know lan’s tricks and techniques for making old buildings and ancient streets look as old on their page as they do in real life – using just 4 colours.
Old buildings are forgiving subjects. Their beams bow and their walls lean, so a wobbly line belongs in scenes like this.
The lines you put down first stay in your sketch and become the grain of the wood or the bend of a roof. So, if you’re brand new to urban sketching you can start with the lines you draw today, wobbles and all.
Each of the 5 workshops comes with full pre-sketch training, so you can see the entire thinking process before you start your own.
If you can hold a pen and follow along, you can do this course.
Most of our sketching courses teach you to record what a place looks like. Ye Olde Sketch Course teaches you how to record what happened to it.
York’s buildings have been bending, sinking and crumbling since the 1400s, and this whole course is built around getting that onto paper: four muted colours per workshop chosen to make things look their age, two brand new colours, and a final workshop with no colour in it at all.
After this you’ll know the steps for making any building or street look old on your page.
Ian has never taught this before.
Yes. This is over-the-shoulder learning with Ian Fennelly.
Ian is an experienced and engaging teacher and has broken each workshop down into easy-to-follow stages. Within each of those stages, he takes you through each step in the process while explaining everything he is doing, slowly and methodically.
You have the flexibility to slow down, pause, or speed up each tutorial to match your learning pace. Some students also prefer to watch the videos first and then watch them again and sketch along. The choice is yours!
Plus, with lifetime access, you can revisit the course as many times as you like.
No. Ian has never taught these techniques in any of his other courses, live trainings or in-person retreats.
Ye Olde Sketch Course is an exclusive training course that teaches you how to sketch old buildings and make them look old on your page.
No. Ian works with a compact kit – a sketchbook, fine liners, Tombow brush pens, and a small set of watercolour paints.
Each workshop uses only 4 watercolours. You do not need a full pan set. The whole point of the limited palette is that fewer colours produce better results.
The course is organised into short, manageable lessons across five workshops.
With lifetime access, you can proceed at your own relaxed pace and on your schedule. And repeat any lessons as often as you like.
Yes. We call it forever access.
It never expires, which allows you to learn at your own pace, on your schedule, and on any device.
What’s more, if we update the course with new segments, trainings, downloads and more. You’ll get those included too at no additional cost.
- Try the Whole Course Risk-Free for 30 Days -
We’re so confident that Ye Olde Sketch Course will be one of the best investments you make on your sketching journey that we can offer you this incredible, better-than-risk-free money-back guarantee:
If after buying Ye Olde Sketch Course you are not 100% THRILLED with the results you’re achieving, just let us know within 30-days and we will issue you with a full refund
We are taking all the risk. You have nothing to lose and you will gain the valuable skill of being able to make any old building or scene look old on your page.