--- product_id: 6992536 title: "The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location" price: "€ 33.64" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.pt/products/6992536-the-urban-sketcher-techniques-for-seeing-and-drawing-on-location store_origin: PT region: Portugal --- # The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location **Price:** € 33.64 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location - **How much does it cost?** € 33.64 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.pt](https://www.desertcart.pt/products/6992536-the-urban-sketcher-techniques-for-seeing-and-drawing-on-location) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Make the world your studio! Capture the bustle and beauty of life in your town. Experience life as only an artist can! Join the rapidly growing, international movement of artists united by a passion for drawing on location in the cities, towns and villages where they live and travel. Packed with art and advice from Marc Taro Holmes , artist and co-founder of Urbansketchers.org , this self-directed workshop shows you how to draw inspiration from real life and bring that same excitement into your sketchbook. Inside you'll find everything you need to tackle subjects ranging from still lifes and architecture to people and busy street scenes. • 15 step-by-step demonstrations cover techniques for creating expressive drawings using pencil, pen and ink, and watercolor. • Expert tips for achieving a balance of accuracy, spontaneity and speed. • Practical advice for working in the field, choosing subjects, coping with onlookers, capturing people in motion and more. • Daily exercises and creative prompts for everything from improving essential skills to diverse approaches, such as montages, storytelling portraits and one-page graphic novels. Whether you are a habitual doodler or a seasoned artist, The Urban Sketcher will have you out in the world sketching from the very first page. By completing drawings on the spot, in one session, you achieve a fresh impression of not just what you see, but also what it feels like to be there . . . visual life stories as only you can experience them. Review: Not for beginners - Great book to add to your library when it’s on sale. I was looking for a decent introduction to Urban Sketching. This was rated #1. Well, it really is a great book, but it’s far too advanced for, a beginner. I bought it and I am keeping it, expecting to grow into it. Treat as such if you are a serious student. Review: Really like this book - I came across this author on YouTube several years ago and enjoyed his work and his commentary on Urban Sketching. I also knew about this book for quite awhile, in fact I had it in my cart - save for later - bin for about six months and finally purchased it. I am impressed with this book because of the authors writing, I know, you say, 'but it's a book about sketching', and yes it is, but he talks you through his examples and writes about his art and subjects like you are sitting with him on location. I love how he describes his drawings as stories and graphic novels. He doesn't want to just document a scene, he guides you into being a storyteller through the pencil, pen and ink medium. Don't get me wrong, he definitely gives many solid tips on how to get to the story through how you use the pencil but he in essence is a teller of the story first of all. He guides you to making the viewer feel what you feel while sketching. He uses terms like, narrative, guided tour, a trail of breadcrumbs in describing his style. He leads you into the language of visual narrative with terms like, gradient of interest, eye magnet, placement, contrast and detail. When writing you're told to -'show don't tell'; but in Urban Sketching we actually do show by what we put on the page. But this author intimates that we should TELL with the sketch, leading the viewer into our composition. I like this book, I think you will as well. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #217,194 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #42 in Graffiti & Street Art #344 in How To Create Comics & Manga #3,034 in Encyclopedias & Subject Guides | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 997 Reviews | ## Images ![The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91yllcRXQBL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Not for beginners *by M***B on June 21, 2026* Great book to add to your library when it’s on sale. I was looking for a decent introduction to Urban Sketching. This was rated #1. Well, it really is a great book, but it’s far too advanced for, a beginner. I bought it and I am keeping it, expecting to grow into it. Treat as such if you are a serious student. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Really like this book *by 1***E on August 11, 2023* I came across this author on YouTube several years ago and enjoyed his work and his commentary on Urban Sketching. I also knew about this book for quite awhile, in fact I had it in my cart - save for later - bin for about six months and finally purchased it. I am impressed with this book because of the authors writing, I know, you say, 'but it's a book about sketching', and yes it is, but he talks you through his examples and writes about his art and subjects like you are sitting with him on location. I love how he describes his drawings as stories and graphic novels. He doesn't want to just document a scene, he guides you into being a storyteller through the pencil, pen and ink medium. Don't get me wrong, he definitely gives many solid tips on how to get to the story through how you use the pencil but he in essence is a teller of the story first of all. He guides you to making the viewer feel what you feel while sketching. He uses terms like, narrative, guided tour, a trail of breadcrumbs in describing his style. He leads you into the language of visual narrative with terms like, gradient of interest, eye magnet, placement, contrast and detail. When writing you're told to -'show don't tell'; but in Urban Sketching we actually do show by what we put on the page. But this author intimates that we should TELL with the sketch, leading the viewer into our composition. I like this book, I think you will as well. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Drawing for beginners; painting for intermediate/advanced *by T***. on November 4, 2014* The Urban Sketcher – Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location is a useful book on drawing and watercolor painting technique illustrated with a selection of Marc Taro Holmes’ dazzling works. It’s certainly worth the $17.30 price (Amazon.com), especially the small watercolor section. I’m a bit puzzled, though, about who the intended audience is. The book begins with an introduction to the concept of urban sketching and its inherent joys. Daily, habitual sketching – with quantity trumping concern for quality – will bring rapid skills improvement to most sketchers, Holmes says, and his own pleasure from the habit is apparent. “Urban sketching gets you out in the world looking for things worth drawing,” he says. “It puts you into the mindset where daily life is part of a larger artistic adventure.” The first two-thirds of the 143-page book focuses on relatively basic drawing techniques that a beginner could grasp and practice without feeling overwhelmed. It begins with an introduction to the pleasures of urban sketching and essential materials used. Then, starting with still lifes, Holmes shows, step-by-step, how to use simple measuring and sight-sizing techniques to draw accurately. Very quickly he moves to applying those same principles to urban landscapes. Useful to beginners as well as more seasoned sketchers, he shows how to break down a complex subject into simplified shapes and angles. Most of the drawing instructions and exercises are based on Holmes’ three-step process: a rough pencil “scribble” followed by a defining pen line and finally a brush pen to darken “shadow shapes,” giving dimension to the drawing. This process is reinforced throughout the book. Some exercises are devoted specifically to sketching people in the urban landscape using these same principles. So far, I could see a highly motivated beginner or intermediate sketcher using Holmes’ three-step process to build skills with continual practice. But a sheer beginner will not find important instruction on perspective when drawing buildings, for example, or understanding proportions when drawing people. (I suppose plenty of other books on the market cover these basic topics.) Where I really felt confused about the intended audience was the final third of the book on watercolor techniques. The first instruction demo is on the “grow a wash” technique, followed by one on charging-in, and then edge-pulling. If I had just opened a new set of paints and were using watercolor for the first time (as implied by the book’s introduction to materials), I would be befuddled and frustrated by these sophisticated techniques right out the door. In Step 1 of a demo, it says, “Keep aware of your color variation, going back for a slightly different hue every time. Never use just one color. Always modify the base color with warm and cool neighbors.” Warm and cool neighbors? All of this comes without a single word related to color mixing or showing a color wheel explaining warm and cool colors. (OK, again, I suppose plenty of watercolor technique books on the market cover these basics.) After having read numerous books on watercolor painting and having taken a few workshops, I feel ready to be challenged by these relatively advanced techniques, but I was surprised to see them in the first few pages of the watercolor section in a book with basic drawing instruction. All of that said, I’m looking forward to trying out these techniques, along with his “tea/milk/honey” principle of paint dilution. Now that I’ve heard myself talk, I realize that the intended audience might actually be me: Someone with three years of experience in pen, ink and watercolor sketching, looking for new challenges to improve my skills. So if you’re like me, you’ll get plenty of value from the slim watercolor portion of the book; perhaps less from the drawing section. If you want to learn drawing, then perhaps this book is for you. It has some good basics, but definitely not all. If you want to learn watercolor, then I’d say you need to read at least one book on beginning watercolor painting before this one. (For inspiration about why to sketch on location and to view a full range of what artists worldwide are doing with urban sketching, then Gabriel Campanario’s The Art of Urban Sketching is still “the bible.” If you are a complete newbie who wants a comprehensive book about how to urban sketch, including beginning basic skills, James Hobbs’ Sketch Your World would be my answer.) One complaint may seem minor, but I see this so often in books published today that it’s no longer a minor offense to me. Much time and care were taken to prepare beautiful, step-by-step demo illustrations and examples. Why, then, couldn’t the same care have been taken with the text? It’s riddled with typos and sloppy editing. One of the photo cutlines doesn’t match the photo. The step numbering on one of the illustrations is wrong. I’m going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume that the publisher is at fault. (I’ve read other books by North Light Books that were equally sloppy.) It’s a shame when budget cuts in the hard-copy publishing world can’t afford a proofreader. ## Frequently Bought Together - The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location - 5-Minute Sketching -- Architecture: Super-quick Techniques for Amazing Drawings - Urban Watercolor Sketching: A Guide to Drawing, Painting, and Storytelling in Color --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.pt/products/6992536-the-urban-sketcher-techniques-for-seeing-and-drawing-on-location](https://www.desertcart.pt/products/6992536-the-urban-sketcher-techniques-for-seeing-and-drawing-on-location) --- *Product available on Desertcart Portugal* *Store origin: PT* *Last updated: 2026-08-22*