Urban Sketching Workshop: Pen and Wash with Gauri Torgalkar

Learn how to transform your surroundings into captivating sketches by mastering key tips, skills and strategies using pen and wash. Explore the urban environment with a professional artist with 20 years of experience in freehand sketching for architecture and urban design to capture street scenes, buildings and public spaces in sketched compositions – then bring them to life with the tone and texture of watercolour washes. 

In this class you will get a chance to develop and practice your outdoor urban sketching skills while learning new techniques to create depth and focus in your drawings. You will be guided to explore different sketching styles, practice capturing a sense of place and develop a personal style for your compositions. 

Urban sketching is a great skill that can help you when you travel, allow you to immerse yourself in the visual storytelling of your local surroundings, and help you represent and communicate your design ideas. 

Gauri Torgalkar is a visual artist and an urban designer with over 20 years’ experience in architecture and urban design. She has taught visual graphics, freehand drawing, and urban sketching for over 10 years to graduate and undergraduate students from various fields. Her artworks have been shown in several prestigious exhibitions in Sydney including the Greenway Art Prize (which she won in 2015), Adelaide Perry Prize, Blacktown Art Prize, and overseas at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, USA. Her work is held in public and private collections in Australia, India and the United States.

This course will include:

• Observing the surrounding environment – big picture and interesting details 
• Simplifying a complex scene 
• Perspective and composition
• Scale, volume and proportion
• Drawing from observation and altering with imagination

What to expect

The class will begin in the studio where we will go over some key tips and lessons, where you'll get acquainted with fellow participants before embarking on a day of outdoor sketching. Together, we'll explore various locations around the class venue, capturing the essence of our urban environment. 

After lunch we will work on watercolour washes followed by creating a walk-through series of sketches that showcase the experience of walking along one of the streets around the studio while highlighting the buildings, open spaces, view corridors and interesting urban details. 

This workshop will provide you with:

• Improved understanding of sketching the built environment; 
• Tips and tricks for quick and effective sketching outdoors to capture a sense of place; 
• Tips for confident line styles; 
• Exploration of different sketching styles;
• Refreshed knowledge of applying perspective to the built environment; 
• Sound understanding for building walk-throughs from one place to another; and 
• Confidence in using watercolour washes and capturing local colours and tones.

Is this course right for me?

This workshop is suitable for beginners to watercolour as well as those more experienced artists. Gauri works with each student at their level and encourages students to pursue their own style.

Materials

In addition to the material list below, your tutor will bring a few of her own tools to the class to demonstrate sketching and colouring using different materials (fude pens, bamboo pens, special watercolours, inks, a variety of papers, etc.) 

Please bring with you:

• “Draw & Wash” paper pad smooth or medium A4 or A5;
• 2B drawing pencil, sharpener OR a mechanical drawing pencil and eraser
• For waterproof drawing, fine tip permanent black pen 1mm or thinner, OR waterproof ink and fountain pen
• Watercolour palette/discs/tubs (a basic colour palette is fine)
• Watercolour brushes (round brushes one thick #10 or #12 and one medium #6 or #4); 
• A small bottle/jar of water (with lid) for painting; 
• Tissues, soft rag or paper towel
• Any other drawing medium that you are comfortable using; and 
• A previous sketchbook, if you have any; this will help the tutor give targeted feedback for your work

Suggested equipment for Outdoor painting

Please dress appropriately for the weather, wear walking shoes and bring a water bottle, lunch and/or snacks. As we will walk around and sit to sketch at different locations, you can bring along a foldable stool if you like,  a picnic rug to sit on the ground, or you can find a convenient park bench or wall.

About studio classes

Our class sizes are small, ensuring you receive the individual tuition you need. We have a maximum of 12 students per class.

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