I want to introduce you to a few urban sketching styles in this post. This is by no means an exhaustive list and the name of each style is certainly not an official label – just what I have decided describes the style best.
I encourage you to check out books such as The Art of Urban Sketching and The World of Urban Sketching for further inspiration on many different styles from all over the world. If you want a Beginner’s Guide to Urban Sketching, please check out my book (shameless plug)!
My intention here is to show that there is no right or wrong when it comes to urban sketching and that by seeing so many different styles may encourage you to get out there and sketch in your own unique manner!
This post took a long time to piece together, if you enjoy it, please do consider sharing it with your other artsy buddies.
Realistic
Ok, let’s start with an easy one – and by that I mean an easy one to describe…I personally think this is probably one of the toughest styles.
Stephanie Bower
When I think about a realistic urban sketching style, the first person who springs to mind is Stephanie Bower. Stephanie is based in Seattle. She is an architectural illustrator and prolific urban sketchers. She delivers workshops all over the world and her specialism is accurate perspective as you can tell from her sketches pictured below.
Even though Stephanie’s superpower is capturing realistic perspective, you can see her drawings aren’t stiff. She utilises the magic of watercolour (the way it can portray light so elegantly) along with a healthy dose of white space to keep her sketches light and airy, despite her fairly precise drawing.
You can find Stephanie on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/stephanieabower/
Paul Heaston
Paul is based in Denver, Colorado and is best known for his realistic ink drawings. He is a master of hatching and often works on toned paper as well as white paper.
He is also well known for distorting perspective and sketching extremely detailed scenes in a fish-eye style. However, here I am focusing on his more realistic style as you can see from his sketches below.
You can din Paul’s work on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/paulheaston/
Ian Sidaway
Ian is based in London and is well-known for producing instructional books. I have one about watercolour on my shelf. He has a wonderful crisp style. His ink drawings feature his unique hatching technique and his watercolour images are graphic, clean and often utilise alot of white space but still evoke a strong sense of realism.
You can find Ian on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/isidaway/
Cartoon-y
Steven B Reddy
Steven is an artist and educator living in Seattle, USA. I adore his work. It’s usually very detailed but everything has a “flubby” quality, I’m pretty sure that’s not a word but….do you remember that film Flubber? I loved that film as a kid.
Anyway…I love seeing the world, Steven’s world, through Steven’s sketches. He has a unique approach where he draws the scene, then paints everything in greyscale (using diluted waterproof ink) and then paints with watercolour on top. This technique is called grisaille and is used with other media but not usually in the way Steven does.
If you’re intrigued, Steven does a demo of the technique in a video with Brenda Murray of Studio 56 which you can check out on Youtube.
He also has an instructional book and illustrated memoirs for sale on Etsy. I would really love to get my hands on these one day!
You can find Steven on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steven_reddy/
Tommy Kane
Tommy Kane is a legend. I believe he is based in New York. He was a prominent guy in the advertising world, is mates with Danny Gregroy and is a loud and proud vegan (which is a subject matter heavily reflected in his sketches).
Again I just love the bubbly flubbery (yep, I’m rolling with that word) quality to his work. I think I read once that he was heavily influenced by the art style of Mad magazine. I’ve never seen the magazine but I have heard of it, certainly in reference to caricature art.
He often adds a lot of imaginative elements to his sketches (which is not strictly urban sketching) but he also has sketches that are true to life (i.e. sketches of what was actually present in real life). His imagination is incredible.
He also has a few books. I only have one of them but it’s gorgeous. It’s an A4-ish hardback book filled with incredible full-colour reproductions of his work. If you don’t have one of his books, get one, you won’t be disappointed. You can find them here.
You can find Tommy on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/realtommykane/
Oliver Hoeller
Oliver Hoeller also has a cartoony style but it’s a bit different from the previous two artists I’ve mentioned. It’s much looser I feel and that’s why I love it so much. I’m a big fan of Oliver’s. I interviewed him not so long ago on my Youtube channel, you can check that video out here.
I love the way Oliver uses colour, his drawings always have an overriding atmosphere. And the loose mark-making gives such energy. I also love that many of his drawings have a comedic element to them; either the way people have been drawn or via speech bubbles containing snippets of conversation Oliver hears.
Oliver also has an excellent book which I feel covers a lot of elements of on-location drawing that I haven’t seen in other instructional books. I think you can only buy it directly from Oliver so go check out his website to find out more.
Oliver holds workshops all over the world and will be teaching at the Urban Sketchers Symposium this year (2024) in Buenos Aires. At the time of writing, there are still tickets, so go grab one and then make sure to come and say hello to me there!
You cand Oliver on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/hoelleroliver/
White Space / Minimalist
This is one of my favourite categories or styles of urban sketching. Sometimes minimal sketches or sketches with lots of white space appear simple but for anyone who has tried to work in this style, you’ll know it’s deceptively tricky. What to leave in, what to leave out…
If you want a deeper look at this topic then I highly recommend checking out my video below:
Lis Watkins
Lis is an illustrator, urban sketcher and educator living in London. Her use of white space is masterful. She just knows exactly how much to draw and what to leave out. It’s just so powerful and so much fun to look at. I also love how she effortlessly interweaves the use of shapes and lines. Some areas of her sketches are just painted shapes with not much detail and other areas may just be lines with no colour.
She often holds sketchwalks in London and conducts workshops all over the place. Check out her Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/lineandwash/
Simone Ridyard
Simone is a lecturer in Architecture based in Manchester, UK. Her style is incredibly unique. She often draws a busy scene with fine yet loose lines (the term organised chaos seems to spring to mind) and then just with a burst of singular colour somewhere but otherwise, the page remains white.
Simone had a great instructional book called ‘Archisketcher’ which you can find here and you can check out more of her work on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simoneridyard/
John Harrison
It’s only as I am writing this, I realise the last 3 sketchers I’ve mentioned are from the UK. Maybe there’s just something about white space in the UK, who knows?!
I interviewed John a few years back. He gave such awesome tips and advice in that video, I highly recommend checking it out here.
Tiago Cruz
Tiago’s mastery of minimalism is something to behold. Like some of the previous sketchers I have mentioned, he knows exactly what to leave out and only draws the essentials. He seems to mainly work in an A6 sketchbook (this on – find link) – that’s very small by the way – and his drawings are quite loose.
They have such an energy to them and with only drawing a few things he somehow can convey the whole scene and tell a story.
I would love to have a book of his sketches so I could just look at them all day long! You can find Tiago on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/tiagocruzart/
Loose
Loose urban sketches are always so much fun to check out and there are many different style of “loose-ness” within this category. I have a video on my Youtube channel which delves a little further into this style if you want to check it out.
Neil Whitehead
Neil is another sketcher based in the UK. He has a super recognisable style with his continuous line drawings of street scenes with loose watercolour accents on top – usually a few colours applied wet in wet.
It’s such a dramatic style, I’m a big fan. You can find Neil on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/ennkaydraw/
Captain Tom
Tom Pajdlhauser is an incredible artist. I believe his day job is in animation and he also co-owns a skate shop. I can certainly see the influence of animation when he sketches people. They are imbued with so much character.
I love Tom’s loose drawings with moody watercolour washes applied over the top. He picks out certain areas with white gouache and throws in some ink splatters too. The other thing I love is how he creates a shape on the page. Often he will sketch across a double page of an A4 landscape sketchbook and I love how his sketches trail off into the white of the page.
You cand find Tom on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/captain_tom/
Yohji Kato – Japan
I don’t know much about Yohji Kato aside from the fact I have bumped into many of his sketches on Pinterest and just love the way he captures chaotic city scenes.
Other than that I know he lives in Japan. On researching, I realised his work was included in The World of Urban Sketching (the book I mentioned earlier). There is also an article about him in the Urban Sketchers official magazine Drawing Attention. If you haven’t checked out this FREE digital magazine before you’re missing out!! Go check it out here.
I encourage you to go and read the article by Jane Wingfield but I’ll give a couple of interesting points here. Yohji revisited drawing at the age of 50. He predominantly uses ballpoint pen with oil-based ink. He likes to travel alone so he can spend entire days sketching but also interact with people he meets along the way. Sounds like heaven doesn’t it? He also seems very smiley. There you go, there are all my facts.
You can find Yohji on Instagram: https://instagram.com/skhorou
Unusual Perspective
Alien Bin Bin
I’m still uncertain of AlienBinBin’s real name but I have been a fan of his for many years now. I noticed he was also included in Stephanie’s book, The world of Urban Sketching.
He is an absolute master of distorted or exaggerated perspective and injects his scenes with manga / anime vibes.
When I found out AlienBinBin (that’s what I’m calling him for now) is a big fan of Kim Jung GI that made total sense to me. The way Alien can interpret reality before him and mould it into his bendy detailed illustrations is breathtaking.
I also love the sense of humour he brings to his scenes. From what I can tell he tends to use colour ink pens and paint markers to make his drawings. You can find Alien BinBin on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/alienbinbin/
Reham Ali
Another artist featured in The World of Urban Sketching AND another who will be teaching at the 2024 Urban Sketchers Symposium in Buenos Aires, Reham is based in Alexandria, Egypt.
She also has a lovely loose style but I have added Reham to this category as a lot of her work (and workshops) focus on sketching things at unexpected angles.
She has many sketches of rustic-looking doors and balconies that are sketched from below, looking up. It’s such a unique angle and really makes her work stand apart.
Reham conducts workshops all over the world and you can see more of her sketches on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reham_m_a/
Playful
Inma Serrano
Ahhhh, Inma Serrano. My sketchy hero. Ha ha. I am a HUGE fan of Inma’s style of drawing. So free, so expressive and bold. I love her mark-making and use of bright colours. It’s so inspiring, especially, if like me you feel so bound to try and replicate what you see in a more realistic sense.
It took me so many years to release myself from that and following the work of people like Inma Serrano, Maru Godas and Santi Salles helped alot.
Incidentally, all three of them are Spanish. I made a Youtube video about how much Spanish urban sketchers inspire me, you can check it out below:
I was very lucky to meet Inma when I travelled to Seville earlier this year. I went to join the Urban Sketchers chapter there and Inma was hosting the event, what luck! You know they say you should never meet your heroes? Well, I can confirm Inma is AWESOME, so that was a relief!
She will be running a workshop at the USK symposium. Needless to say it was the first one I signed up for when I bought my ticket!
If you love Inma’s work too then she does have a book of sketches of Seville, her home city. It’s wonderful, you can find it on Amazon here.
Marina Grechanik
Marina is based in Israel and is another well-known urban sketcher. I’d say mainly for her people and reportage sketches. Marina really inspires me as she happily disregards realism and just sees to sketch so organically, with pure freedom.
You can find Marina on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/marinka71/
Nelson Paciencia
Nelson is an architect based in Portugal. He has been on the urban sketching circuit (for lack of a better term) for many years but for some reason, I only just became aware of him recently while looking through all the workshop options for the 2024 USK symposium.
This year I am keen to push myself out of my comfort zone, which means people sketching; an area I want to improve.
I started looking at Nelson’s work and instantly fell in love with it. I LOVE the way he draws people so much – with gigantic hands and all. He also records comments in speech bubbles, which I love. And the way he draws buildings too is full of the same sense of wild abandon, pure fun and sense of humour.
I am so excited to meet him in October and take his workshop. You can find Nelson on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/nelson_paciencia/
Digital
Rob Sketcherman
Rob remains fairly unique in the urban sketching field as there aren’t many sketchers who use an iPad to draw exclusively. Not only this but Rob’s style is so engaging. It’s pretty hard to quantify but I feel like it has a graphic novel / comic book edge to it…especially when he sketches people. I also love his lettering and stamp that he adds. It makes the whole piece feel like a sketchbook spread.
I was lucky enough to participate in Rob’s workshop at the USk symposium in 2023. I can confirm he is a wonderful, warm and friendly person. His workshop was a lot of fun. He will also be teaching at the 2024 event.
You can find Rob on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/robsketcherman/
Uma Kelkar
I dug around for a while trying to find other urban sketchers who use digital mediums and then I remembered Uma Kelkar literally wrote the book on it….. it’s one of the books in the Urban Sketching Handbook series!
While Uma doesn’t exclusively use digital as an urban sketching medium she has many great examples of sketches done in this way. And her style is completely different to Rob’s so I think it offers a nice contrast.
Uma dabbles in all different mediums and styles (something I am a big fan of). I think it’s great for sketchers to have their signature styles but please don’t worry about boxing yourself in – I encourage you to try everything. You may settle into a little niche of sketching that you prefer or keep roaming around trying new things….both are fine!
You can find Uma on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/umapaints/
Toned Paper
I have a video on my Youtube channel which delves a little further into urban sketchers that specifically use toned paper if you want to check it out below:
Pat Southern-Pearce
Pat is another sketcher based in the UK (there are a lot of sketchy people on that small island y’know)! Yet again, her work is super distinguishable. She mostly uses toned paper, whether it’s grey or tan – and she also uses colourful paper too.
She uses dry media such as ink pens, gel pens, paint markers and watercolour pencils (without adding water). I think I heard her say in an interview once that she prefers watercolour pencils as they’re a bit creamier than colour pencils.
Another key element that instantly makes Pat’s work recognisable is her lettering style. It’s beautiful and her text is as important to her overall sketch as the drawing.
You can find Pat on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/patsouthernpearce/
Murray Dewhurst
Murray is based in New Zealand. I first discovered his work on Instagram a few years back. It’s less frequent (certainly back then) that you see urban sketches on toned paper so I think that’s what made him stand out to me. I love his bold use of colour (paint markers I think).
You can find Murray on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/kiwisketcher/
Reportage
Dan Archer
Dan is another artist I was unaware of until I investigated the workshop listings for the 2024 USk Symposium. Dan is a graphic journalist based in the UK. Dan covers a wide range of social justice topics, from homelessness to human trafficking, using the drawn medium to protect his interviewees’ identities and ensure that their stories reach a wider audience. His work has been published by Vice magazine, the BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, American Public Media, Fusion and the list goes on….
I am extremely interested in reportage illustration and graphic journalism which seems to be a whole other category in itself. I am on a learning journey at the moment taking in some of the key names in the field such as Joe Sacco, Susie Cagle, Wendy Macnaughton, Tom Hart along with many more. I think when I get a better grasp on the subject I may write a blog post as it’s such a fascinating rich subject and arguably where at least a part of urban sketching comes from: news reporting.
You can find Dan on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/archcomix/
Veronica Lawlor
Veronica is based in New York and is a member of the faculty of Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design, and conducts private reportage workshops worldwide.
She stands out to me as the epitome of a reportage artist – her drawings are an immediate response to what’s around her. There’s no time to beautify and wonder which shade or colour to use – she needs to draw what’s going on right then and there.
Nothing was truer than during the 9/11 attacks when she couldn’t believe her eyes as to what was happening but pulled out her sketchbook nonetheless to record what was happening.
Her work is featured in many publications and she has written several books on drawing & illustration too, including the Urban Sketchers Handbook on the subject of Reportage & Documentary Illustration.
She’s even drawn the Pope (John Paul II)!
You can find Veronica on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/verolawlor/
George Butler
George Butler is a conflict artist from the UK. He is one of very few (that I know of) illustrators working out in the field to report from conflict zones. Although this is not all he does. He reports on other important social issues aside from war.
George’s sparse illustrations echo the difficult situations he illustrates on the spot. He uses plenty of white space which adds a sense of drama and immediacy to his work. Also space for some interpretation from the viewer perhaps too?
George has some books available of his sketches, most recently one from Ukraine. He is co-founder of Action Syria who make sure Syrian people have the medical care and education they need, every day and when emergencies strike.
You can find George Butler on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/georgebutlerillustration
Gabi Campanario
It seems fitting to end with Gabi Campanario, the man who coined the term ‘urban sketching’ and started an ever-expanding global community around grabbing a sketchbook and pen to draw the world around us. What an amazing legacy. Not that he’s dead or anything. You know what I mean.
Gabi was (I don’t think he is anymore but I’m open for correction) a journalist and illustrator for the Seattle Times. Hence the roots of urban sketching in visual journalism and reportage illustration. By the way if you want a brief overview of what urban sketching is, then you can check out this video…[link].
I love Gabi’s directness with his illustration. He doesn’t mess about with pretty pictures and using watercolour just so – he draws directly, getting to the heart of the matter; something that’s important if you are reporting news with your sketchbook.
He is a massive inspiration to us all. I hope one day I can tell him what a huge impact he has had on my life by creating this movement called urban sketching.
Thanks Gabi.
Conclusion
That’s it from me on this overview of urban sketching styles. There must be so many more that I haven’t covered but I hope this has given you an appetite to go forth and explore urban sketching for yourself. Go check out the sketchers I’ve mentioned, go take some courses, but most of all get out there and sketch!
Oh and if you’re in the market for a Beginners Guide to Urban Sketching you can check out my book here! Available in major bookstores and online…..