Instantly Loosen Up Your Lines ⎹ Urban Sketching for Beginners

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]In this tutorial, I'll show you how you can instantly loosen up your line work, and then I'll be using those techniques to sketch this garden gazebo. So, here are three tips to help you loosen up your line work. And these are taken from my beginner's urban sketching course over on my Patreon membership, if you're interested. So, tip number one is to change your grip. So, we're going to move our fingers from the front of the pen to the middle or the back of the pen.

[00:00:24]So, somewhere from the middle to the back, and that'll help loosen up your line works straight away.

[00:00:30]And then, we're going to lock our wrist.

[00:00:32]So, pull down my sleeve there.

[00:00:34]We're not going to be sketching lines with our wrist. We're going to lock our wrist and move your elbow. So, move your whole arm, but lock your wrist there.

[00:00:42]And then, the third tip is I recommend doing warm-up exercises before you sketch. So, let's try a few here. So, grab yourself a scrap piece of paper.

[00:00:51]So, this is an old piece that I've already done some work on the other side. And then, make sure you have your grip, your wrist locked, and we're going to be doing these warm-up exercises. So, firstly, let's sketch a circle.

[00:01:02]So, very loosely.

[00:01:05]All right, it doesn't have to be a perfect circle.

[00:01:07]But, see how I'm letting it wobble around the page?

[00:01:12]Yeah, a few go around a few times.

[00:01:14]Now, the next one is more straight lines. So, let's do a square.

[00:01:17]So, let's go across, down, and then across again, and up, all in one line.

[00:01:26]So, I don't want to see anyone holding the pen down and doing trying to get a perfect circle like this, or a square in the same way. Let's hold our pen back.

[00:01:37]It's a good warm-up. So, you can do this before any sketch.

[00:01:41]And next, we'll do an expressive shape, just like one of the bushes or the trees in this tutorial we're going to do. So, it's like a mini cloud where we're silhouetting the leaves, but it's very random. So, that's why holding your pen so far back and doing it quickly in one line helps.

[00:01:57]So, I'm going around an imaginary shrub.

[00:02:02]And see how I'm sort of hold locking my wrist, but making sure the pen moves really freely.

[00:02:10]So, try that a few times. We're going to be using that today. So, that's a warm-up exercise. Now, I'm going to use those three tips in this tutorial. So, it's really good practice.

[00:02:20]But also stay for the watercolor cuz I've got some techniques to help with all these greens to try and make this scene make sense and give it some depth.

[00:02:28]So, I'm thinking about that those blue lines. That's halfway and halfway. And we're going up from halfway and putting a dot on the left there. The next dot is to the right of that. Now, to get that point, the height is about 1/3 of the width. 1/3 and there we go. I've got the top and the width. Now, let's outline that shape. It's our first shape where we can use our loose line technique.

[00:02:57]Holding my pen, locking my wrist, and then back on the line like that. Let's do a third one.

[00:03:06]From the outside.

[00:03:09]Little kink on the top there. Then if we go down here, we come in just from the right. Little dot there.

[00:03:15]Now, that height there is about the same. Now, let's draw a straight line down this way.

[00:03:21]So, from there halfway down to there. Then the second one comes a little bit of the left to the middle.

[00:03:28]Down there.

[00:03:30]Down.

[00:03:31]One in the middle there.

[00:03:33]And one on the end. So, some rough dots to help us with this this timber work.

[00:03:38]So, we have these angle brackets.

[00:03:40]And they go down. Now, come in again.

[00:03:42]Now, these lines aren't so loose compared to the foliage that we're going to do.

[00:03:48]But only a little bit across cuz we've got foliage through there. So, just above this line here, come in.

[00:03:57]And that's that back edge there. And then we come down here.

[00:04:01]We're going to do a shrub here. So, I'm holding my pen in the middle and I'm locking my wrist and we're going to hold We're going to do these lines very freely. Now, let's just outline that with very random lines.

[00:04:15]I'm imagining the little shapes of the leaves.

[00:04:20]That's our first one, about there.

[00:04:24]So, don't have to press too hard or hold the pen very tightly.

[00:04:29]So, all in one line.

[00:04:31]>> [snorts] >> Then I can just hit this line in. These are longer and narrower leaves there.

[00:04:44]And starts to cut through these lines.

[00:04:46]So, I'm trying to get those lines there that are there.

[00:04:50]So, they're cutting there where they stopped.

[00:04:53]Now, I'm ignoring the flowers. Jitty.

[00:04:56]So, make sure you got a nice angle there.

[00:05:02]I'm still keeping my pen very loose and as I'm sketching these one lines, I'm glancing up at the reference.

[00:05:10]And some of the overhanging grass.

[00:05:14]A line there.

[00:05:15]Skinny little grasses there. Starting on the left.

[00:05:25]And in and out.

[00:05:27]But I got to see where it goes to, about just above the window here.

[00:05:33]And then back and then out and then back.

[00:05:38]Tree on the side.

[00:05:40]Now, you can even hold it right back on the lid if you like, right back on the end of the pen. And that gives you even less control.

[00:05:49]Like that, makes it really loose.

[00:05:51]Now, that's all the main shapes. I'm just going to go through and add some detail where I need it. I want the auto focus around here, so that's where I'm going to add the detail. Add a few of these.

[00:06:04]And if you notice there's a chair there, so I'm doing a rectangle at an angle.

[00:06:09]So, there's a bit more detail in the gazebo.

[00:06:12]Very happy with that. So, that's all line work. I hope you enjoyed using your pen more loosely with that.

[00:06:18]Now, I'm going to show you how to do watercolor.

[00:06:22]And I have my round 10 brush and an extra palette in the foreground, make it a darker value. And then as we go around to the background around here, I'm going to make it a lot lighter. So, that'll help give a bit of depth. Also, warm and cool colors. If you add warm colors at the front and cooler colors at the back in the distance, that also helps with depth. Okay, so we're going to start with the sky. So, I'm using cerulean blue and then across the top of the sky, let's add a little bit of yellow ochre going up.

[00:06:56]So, those two connecting and hopefully they'll blend out.

[00:06:59]The roof will be We'll start with a bit of Payne's gray and then we'll mix a warmer color, so like burnt umber.

[00:07:08]Okay, we're coming down.

[00:07:11]Now, I would really like those flowers to stand out. And start with cadmium red or a warm red that you have, but I'm just going to add them in very loosely.

[00:07:21]Little dots is red dots everywhere.

[00:07:24]And now I'm using dioxazine purple.

[00:07:28]They go quite far out here.

[00:07:32]There's actually even some back here.

[00:07:34]Go down to the wharf. You have still got that Payne's gray.

[00:07:38]Slap a little bit in there.

[00:07:40]Let's let it dry.

[00:07:43]We're going to start on the left here, make our way across sap green.

[00:07:49]I want to actually continue onto the next shrub. So, we're continuing there.

[00:07:54]And then as we go across we add some viridian green.

[00:07:58]So, this is a combination of sap green and viridian green.

[00:08:02]And we can add a little bit of turquoise or blue. So, you could add ultramarine blue as well.

[00:08:09]As a blue in it.

[00:08:11]So, that's sort of where the light is hitting that top of that shrub.

[00:08:14]Viridian green here.

[00:08:17]And I'm just going to add some splashes through there. So, this is a bit lighter than here cuz we don't want to draw our eye away from this section. Darker viridian green. This is very light around these flowers at the bottom.

[00:08:28]Yeah, so see these these plants here.

[00:08:30]I'm going to make them a bit of a darker color. Now, we're hinting at those flowers in the in the foreground. So, let's get the sap green there.

[00:08:41]And then getting some Payne's gray.

[00:08:42]That'll desaturate the color. Slapping it down here.

[00:08:47]Grab the viridian green, Payne's gray.

[00:08:51]We're trying to use the tip and leave some white space.

[00:08:55]See how much white there is there?

[00:08:57]There. That cooler light. Some burnt sienna.

[00:09:01]Timber frame.

[00:09:06]I'm actually going to let that dry.

[00:09:09]Now, for the shadows I'm going to use just ultramarine today.

[00:09:12]Plain ultramarine.

[00:09:16]Supports.

[00:09:18]Some there.

[00:09:19]Even behind this plant.

[00:09:22]There like that.

[00:09:23]Some final darker dots. We want to concentrate the detail around here again. I'll stroke some darker contrast dots.

[00:09:32]And just tap with that paint.

[00:09:37]So, my Uniball Eye Signo pen.

[00:09:40]Sorry, Uni-ball signal pen. And then we'll have some nice streaky lines through here. So just a few.

[00:09:47]And then on the edge I catch some light on the little sticks.

[00:09:52]So this my final result. Hope you enjoyed the process and you learned how to improve your loose line work as well as the interesting greenery here from the the background to the foreground with depth. If you want the full version without all the cuts, I'm going to put that over on my Patreon membership and you can also download the high res reference there. Plus I've got my full library of tutorials there and my beginners course which has more projects and exercises for learning how to do loose line work as well as how to use a brush and watercolor as well. So great stuff for watercolor. You learn buildings, people and objects as part of that course. And there's a wonderful community where you can post your sketches and ask me any questions.

[00:10:35]Otherwise, thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.