{"id":653,"date":"2020-07-03T18:37:20","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T18:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbansketchingworld.com\/?p=653"},"modified":"2023-06-13T17:31:52","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T17:31:52","slug":"best-skillshare-classes-for-urban-sketching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbansketchingworld.com\/best-skillshare-classes-for-urban-sketching\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Skillshare Classes for Urban Sketching"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\"Learn<\/a>\n\n\n\n

What is Skillshare? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I think a large proportion of us have heard of skillshare, not least because of their valiant marketing efforts and the fact nearly every creative person on Youtube has a video sponsored by them. Saying that, Skillshare is one of my favourite learning platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Skillshare is affordable and there\u2019s a vast array of creative industries represented so you can basically learn whatever you want for a small monthly fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teachers, more often than not, are professionals in their field, they actually work in the industry and they know what real-life skills people need to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As pretty much anyone can sign up to be a teacher on Skillshare and upload their course, there are obviously a few issues with quality (of teaching or production or both). This means some courses are fantastic quality and well-structured whereas others lie more on the amateur side of things, which is ok because what they are teaching may be still really valuable. It\u2019s just possible the delivery and the video\/audio quality won\u2019t always be 100% consistent across the entire platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are thousands and thousands of courses on Skillshare.  At first, it\u2019s super fun to browse through them all, however, decisions fatigue can set in and all of a sudden your motivation for being there and readiness to learn can seep away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, my dear friends, I have done the hard (ok, not so hard but fairly enjoyable) work of sifting my way through the courses specific to urban sketching and selecting the best (in my humble opinion) few.  That way you can get started right away!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are not yet a member of Skillshare, you can join for free and there will be a few courses available to you (such as my bonus pick at the end of the post) however, to unlock the rest, you will need to upgrade to a Premium account, which at the time of writing is US$15 a month (if you pay monthly). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can get a trial of Premium membership for FREE<\/strong> if you follow this link<\/a>. It’s an affiliate link and I get a couple of bucks if you sign up, even for a free trial \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Top 5 Skillshare Courses on Urban Sketching<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In short, here are my recommended picks to learn urban sketching on Skillshare. Carry on reading for the reasons why these are my top picks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Travel Sketching Essentials: A Great Sketch in 5 Steps<\/a> – James Richards
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  2. How to Draw on Location: An Urban Sketching Course<\/a> – Teoh Chie
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  3. Urban Sketching | A Beginner’s Guide<\/a> – Samantha Nielsen
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  4. Urban Sketching Essentials: Drawing People and Crowds Made Simple<\/a> – James Richards
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  5. Watercolor Travel Sketchbook: Create an artistic sketch of Venice with watercolor<\/a> – Anastasia Novikova<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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    Travel Sketching Essentials: A Great Sketch in 5 Steps<\/a> – James Richards<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    I first discovered James Richards through the creative learning platform, Craftsy. There are some fantastic really in-depth courses on Craftsy by some of the most well-known urban sketchers such as Marc Taro Holmes<\/a>, Shari Blaukopf<\/a>, Stephanie Bower<\/a> and Suhita Shirodkar<\/a> to name a few. James Richards also has a course there. As such, I started to research his work and found I absolutely loved his style. It\u2019s so full of energy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    shorturl.at\/oKQXZ<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    James Richards is an urban designer, artist and professor – it amazes me that for $15 we can get his expertise distilled into this 2-hour video course (as well as an unlimited amount of other courses to watch). Jim has taught illustrators at university and at urban sketching workshops all over the world. He has travelled extensively, sketching along the way. If there\u2019s anyone to learn from, Jim is the man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I would certainly make this the first course you watch about urban sketching on Skillshare. Although this is Jim\u2019s second course for the platform I think that this one gives an overall view of how to create a sketch from start to finish.  When you get to the part about details, you can always skip over to his people sketching video which I will talk about later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you are a complete beginner, this may not be the course to start with, perhaps try Samantha Nielson\u2019s course (see below). This course is better suited to sketchers with some experience I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Jim started off with materials, then talks about thumbnail sketches and their importance (I have a whole blog post on that here<\/a><\/strong>), how to simplify a scene, how to add details such as people, adding darks and contrast and adding colour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you love Jim\u2019s work and want to delve much further into his sketching concepts, he has an amazing book on urban sketching called Freehand Drawing & Discovery<\/strong><\/a> available on Amazon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Want to learn travel sketching in ink & watercolour?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n


    Check out my course, Sketch Your Adventures and for a limited time get 50% OFF!!!<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    \"Sketch<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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    FIND OUT MORE<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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    How to Draw on Location: An Urban Sketching Course<\/a> – Teoh Chie<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Teoh is the cornerstone of the urban sketching community. He is extremely prolific, has a huge blog over at parkablog.com and a massive Youtube following where he reviews anything and everything to do with art and illustration as well as provide urban sketching tutorials and videos of him out and about urban sketching, on his own or with friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    A post shared by Teoh Yi Chie (@parkablogs)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>