Lighthouse With Sunset Sky | Urban Sketching Tutorial For Beginners

Hi I'm Scotty and in this tutorial I'm going to show you how to sketch this lighthouse with a really beautiful sky using ink and watercolour. So we're going to start at the bottom here. So we'll go up about an inch there. Now from the top, from this dot to the top there, let's go half way between and put another dot there. Now we also get this height and turn. So we want this tower width and we can do that by coming up from this side and then a third of that way across. Let's draw an angle down from here to there, shed on the side, impressionistically going around things. A slight curve, from this dot here to here, let's go half way. So now let's draw that building in. And then from this point here to there, half way, straight down there like that. If I have those three dots there, this section is shorter and this is longer and this is shorter again. See it's a subtle angle, a little bit down, so I'll come down this way, should come right across and should be equal. So that should look about the same as that one. Let's draw that line there then, the same as this one, parallel to this line, join those lines up. Now let's add some width to this roof, so come across this way. I'm going to turn my page, right down here, straight down vertical. We go across to about half way here, and straight down. And create the second box. The bottom of the tower here on the roof, to here, and we double that distance up. And then we can outline that dome. And continue it down, straight down this way, create that second little section there, create vertical lines there, follow some of those rocks, make this section bigger than this one. I think that's important. Go across to half way, just a light line like that, and then a wispy line underneath, the top of the horizon and then another little line. So we've done all of the big shapes, now we have to go and do all the details. Let's start with some birds up here. A little bird there that I'm going to add in, make sure you get his head, and then the wing. I'll outline this little dome, mini dome, maybe it's an antenna, and then the bottom sections there. Just outlining that shape. Go straight down the window now there, there's black things that hold the tower together. So I put it there because I left the gap, it could be slightly different. And then this other chimney, just go over the lines, it's a really light line here. Then at the bottom here, we'll add the dark section, so a dark line, then some rods and ends that are sticking out there, a ladder, down that way. So we've got eight dots, now let's join them up, a little bit different size, there's some detail on the side of the building, a little red sign and a green, some very light lines, just little silhouettes. There's a quad bike across there, so now we've got four sections on this back building, let's add a window. There's something there, I can't see what it is, place around here, just impressionistically outline that area. Smaller little stones that are being placed on that, I'm going to start putting some straight lines and we're coming up and we're just seeing the left side again, just like these ones. So for the sky, I'm going to use my round 12 brush, the big one, and add water to this top section. So just plain water. So starting at the top there and just bring in, you don't have to go right to the border. Imagine that you're, even this is the water bit, you can't see it, the colour will go to wherever you've done the edge of the water, so I'm imagining this will be colour. Grab some lemon yellow, so it can be quite saturated, usually I have a light wash. We'll start just above the guard rail here and put some of that lemon yellow and then just spot it in, you don't have to brush it in too much. You can use a red, I'm going to use alizarin crimson, add in some of that yellow, lemon yellow, add in this strong orange and here as we're going, not right to the bottom yet, we're getting that orange, now add a bit more alizarin crimson, alizarin crimson is just a little bit cooler than cadmium red and then we have Payne's grey, add that along the top and add some spots into that orange. That's dry, we can start doing the other features, like I'm going to add some cadmium red to the top here for these roofs, around the chimney and down into that corner, I don't know how to include those, while we've got red, then Payne's grey and around the windows, we'll add in that white frame later, leave gaps between areas, so even these little objects here you can leave and these rocks on the side, they are darker than the middle stones, so there's a bit of green here too, so grab some sap green across this side and there's also a mesh and it looks like it's burnt sienna, like an orange, so that mesh bit of a fence and with burnt umber, we'll mix it into the top of the Payne's grey, light browny mix across the top and go around all the other colours, you can touch a bit, coming across then more Payne's grey, right into the corner here, so just a bit of permanent rose, going across here, don't touch the edge and then you can add a little bit of blue, I'm just going to put that in and do this background here, now add even more, so shadows I usually use purple lake, I think it'll look better if we use ultramarine in this one, as we said before the light's on the right hand side, shadows on this side, now come down and we spread it down this left hand side, quite a big stroke down there, then this whole side of the building there like that, but then at that edge stop and then come down, so then there'll be a shadow across this section because the building is blocking the light hitting there, on the back of the chimney, we're going to add little strokes to show that it's water, so horizontal strokes, now just some little saturated dots now, these are the details and the highlights and some dots in the corners, so I've got sap green, just adding some, so I have my uniball signo pen, so I'm going to outline these squares around the windows, I have to use lots of little tiny strokes with this to get the ball rolling on the watercolour, and this one will stand out more because the background is darker, the edges, little reflections in the rocks and along each one, now let's do lots of horizontal lines, and that's how I sketch a lighthouse with a really beautiful background there using ink and watercolour, I hope you enjoyed this process, if you want the full tutorial without all the cuts, it's got a lot more theory in there, plus we have the reference and the template you can, which will help you to sketch this along with me, that'll be all over on my Patreon membership, and there's also a community where you can post your sketches and I can see your work, otherwise there's another tutorial right here on YouTube, thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.