Buildings come in all shapes, sizes and colors, some of which are much more complicated to draw. As a beginner it’s good to focus in on what your eye sees, but try and simplify the scene before you and look for where you can apply blocks of color. You don’t need to get too much into the detail. It doesn’t have to be a literal translation, with every door and window drawn. It can be good to have the focal point of your drawing drawn in more accurate detail, but it needn’t be precise across the whole sketch.
LEN GRANT
Place Moulay Hassan, Essaouira, Morocco
There is a great deal of atmosphere in this quirkily drawn pen-and-watercolor street scene by Len Grant. It shows the Place Moulay Hassan, in the seaside town of Essaouira on the southwest coast of Morocco. Plenty of people create a sense of place, scale and bustle—in fact, you could even say it was bazaar-like! Len has also captured the detail of the architecture typical in this part of the world: highly decorated building facades and wrought iron balconies. Using just one warm color in different intensities helps bring the sketch to life, while blacking in just a few windows establishes tonal contrasts and a feeling of depth.
LYNNE CHAPMAN
Paraty House, Brazil
Green can be notoriously hard to convey—pans or tubes in watercolor sets never seem to be an accurate representation. My best advice is to experiment. Mix your greens from a combination of blues and yellows. These give far more interesting color mixes, and are much more sympathetic with colors in nature. Lynne Chapman has used both green and yellow effectively to capture the exuberance of her scene (above).
CHRIS LEE
Mompesson House, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
The sketch below by Chris Lee captures the rhythms and patterns of Georgian architecture. Actually, it feels much more realized than a sketch. To begin with it is beautifully drawn—every detail is captured, with lovely marks for the tiled roofs and occasional bricks on the smaller building on the left. Chris has then applied pretty realistic color, all in warm tones. Even the landscape greens are warm.