Just a quick post to announce that I have a new two-day Sketching Architecture workshop here in Sydney on Thurs 28 – Friday 29 November 2019.

This year has been so busy that I haven’t had much chance to offer workshops, so it’s great to be able to sneak one in before the end of the year.

I announced this to my newsletter readers last night and at the time of writing this there was only one spot remaining. So if you are interested, please don’t delay.

Here are the full details.

I’m pleased to announce a 2 day Sketching Architecture workshop in Macquarie St Precinct, Sydney

on Thursday 28 – Friday 29 November 2019.

This workshop will explain how to draw architecture by feeling edges, abstracting shapes and constructing volumes (three ways of visual thinking as explained in my Foundations online course).

I will be sharing my experience from 20 years as an architect and over 200 sketchbooks of applying this knowledge to real-life sketching on-location.

In this workshop you will learn:

• How to understand buildings as volumes and how to abstract this into lines and shapes to make it easier to draw
• How to map light and dark and use this to define form
• How to see underlying structure and thicknesses and then express these through ‘leading edges’
• How to draw in perspective using my latest hands-on approach – what I call “pointless perspective” (ie. ways of achieving accurate perspective without using the traditional vanishing points that often are off the page)

This workshop will be a summary of the content taught in my SketchingNow Buildings online course plus a session on perspective.

• Apart from a brief introduction and warmup exercise each morning, the workshop will be all sketching out on location.
• This is predominately a drawing workshop – I will be demonstrating in ink and wash, but will not be specifically teaching watercolour techniques.
• Some drawing experience is needed. ie. this workshop is not suitable for a total beginner.

Price: $352.00 AUD ($320 plus GST)
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Minimum Participants: 6
Maximum Participants: 12

SIGN UP FOR WORKSHOP (via Eventbrite)

Here is a video of the 2016 version of this workshop (thanks to Mike Botton for the videography!)

An extensive handout will be issued to all participants including notated drawings created during the 2 day workshop.

Reviews

Thank you so much for wonderful 2 days. I learnt that there are certain details that we can observe and copy to a paper which will make the painting look like architecturally correct and not flat. Probably I was concentrating on details which aren’t necessary (at this stage of my painting experience). Few correct details make drawing much convincing. I was happy with what I done that day posted a photo of my quick sketch on Instagram which I hadn’t done for a while.

For people who did online courses, it’s a good compliment to them and a good chance to ask questions and/or to actually realise what I was doing wrong! (despite clear Liz’s videos …). For people who have not done online courses, there’s no issue because Liz will explain the core concepts very clearly. I had only done 2 of Liz’s courses. She is approachable so very easy to ask questions. Everyone who attended were all enthusiastic about sketching so it was fun to see what they draw/paint and discuss a lot about anything related! Even about other artists, art mediums, and everything!

For beginners, it’s not a scary course 🙂 I was probably on beginner end. The day after the course, I went to my local area to do a quick sketch and it was very different from my previous attempt.

She also gives us lots of tools to sketch/paint — so each student can experiment what suits him/her. In the end, I now have few ways of sketching in my mind which I will use depending on the subject or how much i have, or what medium I want to use! And as a last note, if you have your own style, and want to mix it with what Liz teaches, she will be delighted to see it and will not discourage it just because it’s different to what she taught (which I have seen with other tutors).

She will also send you a detailed note after the workshop, which was great.

Looking forward to more workshops

– Naoko, 2017

I know a lot of us mentioned perspective as something we struggle with, & now thanks to Liz’s instructions and emailed handouts, there is much to peruse and learn up. I find I am a slow sketcher as I have to think of lots of things before I put pen to paper, in an attempt to get it right. The last exercise we did on day 2, by drawing with the paint first, then ink lines second, was surprisingly liberating! I really enjoyed this and found I was much quicker and liked the slightly wonky result. I will try using this method more times. I know for me it’s all about practice practice practice, and the improvements should come. It was the most wonderful 2 day workshop with a bunch of friendly, like-minded sketchers. Thanks so much Liz!

– Fiona, 2017