Mastering Urban Landscape in Watercolor: The Ultimate Course

In this comprehensive course, you will learn everything you need to know about how to paint urban landscapes in watercolor. Urban landscapes are a fascinating and unique subject that combines a number of smaller subjects including people, buildings, and nature. Creating a sense of place is important but being able to tell a story and compose a powerful, emotive painting is a skill that will take your urban landscapes to the next level. This course will show you not only how to paint the featured scenes, but how to transform any photograph into an urban landscape!

There are seemingly many different techniques and processes involved when painting an urban landscape. As a beginner, it's difficult to know how to even start! I hold your hand, and take you through my entire process from start to finish, beginning with the initial planning process.

In the "Theory and Exercises" module, I'll show you how to identify and compose a scene in your mind before you even start drawing. It's important to select an appropriate subject that will translate into a rich and interesting painting. I talk about what elements to look for, how to sketch, and how to identify light and shadow. Next, we'll go through all the essential watercolor techniques required to paint urban landscapes as well as the crucial topics of values, color, and perspective. In this module, you'll have also many opportunities to practice watercolor theory and techniques by completing simple painting studies together.

In the second module, "Urban Landscape Elements", we will go through how to paint essential elements found in every urban landscape. In particular, we will cover how to paint buildings, people, and vehicles. This will give you the foundation blocks in order to feel confident painting an entire urban landscape with various elements.

In the final module, "Paint Along Instructional Demonstrations", you will paint a variety of urban landscapes in different countries and contexts. This will provide you an opportunity to create your own beautiful paintings from scratch and apply your knowledge from the previous modules.

So join me in this course, you'll be painting some beautiful urban landscapes in no time at all!

Course Outline:

Introduction and Materials

• Introduction
• Materials (check the attachments in this lecture for course resources and references)

Module 1: Theory and Exercises

• Understanding Timing and its relation to Paint Consistency
• Understanding Values: Finding Large Shapes and Identifying Light
• Watercolour Techniques
  • Layering Washes (flat wash, graded wash)
  • Dry brush
  • Blending
  • Lifting
  • Creating texture, smoke
  • Wet in wet, wet in dry
  • Scratching, scumbling, textures
• Color Theory and Mixing
• Perspective and Depth
  • 1-point perspective, using values to imply nearness or distance
• Composition
  • Rule of thirds
• Sketching and planning from a reference, composition

Module 2: Urban Landscape Elements

• Painting Buildings
• Painting People and Vehicles

Module 3: Paint Along Instructional Demonstrations

• Video Demonstrations