Day 1 — Shape: Notan, Positive & Negative Space
Day 2 — Space: Two-Point Perspective & Architecture
Day 3 — Story: Color, Details, Depth & the Charlotte Light Rail

Visit URBAN SKETCHING WEBSITE: CLICK HERE

Suggested Student Supply List

Required

• Sketchbook — watercolor/mixed-media paper, approximately 7 × 10 in. or 9 × 12 in. Stillman & Birn Alpha Series, 7 × 10 in.
• Waterproof black or gray ink pen — a fineliner, fountain pen, or similar permanent-ink pen. Waterproof ink because watercolor is applied over the drawing.
• Small watercolor travel set — 12–24 colors is plenty. The Sakura Koi case or Holbein watercolor pigments. ( Any watercolor will be good)
• Water brush — I recommend water brush pen
• White gel pen — for final highlights. Sakura white gel pen.
• Pencil — HB or 2B, particularly useful for your Day 2 perspective lesson.
• Eraser
• Small ruler — 6–12 inches, primarily for learning two-point perspective.
• Black brush pen or broad black marker — I would add this specifically for your Day 1 Notan exercises.

For outdoor sketching

• Folding/stadium stool or lightweight chair
• Hat/sunscreen
• Drinking water
• Binder clips to keep sketchbook pages from blowing
• Small bag/backpack
• Paper towel or small sponge

WORKSHOP OVERVIEW

Urban sketching is about more than accurately drawing a building. It is about slowing down, observing a place, deciding what matters, and recording the experience through line, shape, value, color, text, and personal marks.

During this three-day workshop, students will progress from simple black-and-white value studies to a complex finished cityscape.

Rather than beginning with tiny architectural details, students will first learn to see the city as a collection of large shapes.

Each day introduces another layer:

Day 1: SHAPE
See the scene as positive and negative shapes.

Day 2: SPACE
Organize architecture using perspective.

Day 3: STORY
Combine perspective, color, depth, signage, trees, transportation, people, and skyline to capture the character of Charlotte.

The goal is not photographic perfection.

The goal is to observe, simplify, select, and respond.

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DAY ONE SHAPE

Notan Sketches + Positive & Negative Space

A Large Ou tdoor Sculpture at a Fountain

The sculpture becomes the dominant positive shape while the fountain, sky, water, architecture, trees, and spaces surrounding the sculpture become equally important parts of the composition.

Warm-Up: Viewfinder Hunt — 10 Minutes

Before drawing, students walk around the fountain and look at the sculpture from several viewpoints.

Learning Objectives

Students will learn to:

• Notan as the arrangement of light and dark shapes
• identify positive and negative shapes
• simplify complicated objects into large masses
• identify a focal point
• crop a scene intentionally
• recognize interesting silhouettes
• use value to organize a composition
• work quickly instead of overthinking the drawing

At Home:

Use your hands or a small paper viewfinder to frame possible compositions.

Look for: Do not automatically choose the most obvious frontal view.

• an interesting silhouette
• overlapping forms
• large areas of light and dark
• unusual negative spaces
• reflections in the water
• a view that immediately tells the story of the location

Exercise 1: Five Tiny Notans — 20 Minutes

Create five 2 × 3 inch thumbnail sketches.

Use only: BLACK + WHITE

No shading.

No details.

No windows.

No texture.

No color.

Reduce everything you see to flat shapes.

Ask:

What can I eliminate and still recognize the scene?

Exercise 2: Positive Shape — 15 Minutes

Draw only the sculpture.

Fill it as one simplified dark silhouette.

Ignore surface details.

Look for the outer contour.

Exercise 3: Negative Shape — 15 Minutes

Now reverse your thinking.

Instead of drawing the sculpture, draw the shapes:

• around it
• between it
• underneath it
• inside openings
• between sculpture and fountain
• between sculpture and surrounding buildings or trees

The subject should begin to appear even though you are concentrating on the spaces surrounding it.

Teaching Demonstration

Show how a complicated sculpture can be reduced to 3–5 major shapes.

Positive shape: the object or visual mass.

Negative shape: the shapes surrounding and between objects.

White space: intentionally unworked paper that provides breathing room.

Negative space and white space are not necessarily the same thing.

Exercise 4: Three-Value Study — 20 Minutes

Expand the strongest Notan into: Use 3 layers rather than dozens of individual objects.

LIGHT
MID-VALUE
DARK

Main Drawing — 60 Minutes

Create a larger sketch of the sculpture and fountain.

Begin with the largest shapes.

1. Locate the sculpture.
2. Establish its silhouette.
3. Find the fountain shape.
4. Observe the major negative spaces.
5. Add surrounding architecture or trees.
6. Establish three major values.
7. Add only enough line to explain the subject.
8. Leave selected areas unfinished.

Sketchbook Challenge :

SEE BIG BEFORE YOU DRAW SMALL.

Include one written observation somewhere on the page:

What did I notice only because I stopped to draw it?