How To Sketch Tower Bridge Loosely | Urban Sketching Tutorial Step By Step

Hi my name is Scotty and in this step-by-step tutorial I'm going to show you how to sketch Tower Bridge in London using my loose ink and watercolor sketching technique. So what we're going to do is go up halfway between these two points, about there, just a bit more than a centimeter or half an inch there, and then we'll go between this point here and the side of the border about two thirds across which is about there, put a dot, so we'll come out for that curve on each side and then down and stop just before the border, wherever you've got it squatter than in the reference. We'll go straight from that point all the way to the side of the page. You can slightly tilt up, across, now halfway between here and here go across, make shape, down, straight down, arch up, and then following that same curve so it intersects, draw that straight line, curves out, you can divide it up, fingernails on the dots, now I'll lock my fingers still and I turn and then I have that. The tower's actually two of those so measure those up again, put a dot there, and the same on this side, straight across, come down and then as we get closer go in and then hit that dot, get to that dot and then continue down, put a dot there, roughly there, just check, go down and then before you get to about halfway there, kink in, angle there, it's following that same angle between those two dots. Here let's also add a curve and then straight down and go down, so go up, detail, and then a little gap, and then another line, parallel to those lines. Now we can draw that triangular tower like that, cross feature, go roofy, angle it to the roof like that, and the gold crown, looks like I'm gonna fit it just, and then a triangle on the top, right into the corner, slowly curving, getting there, and then continuing up, went too far, so now I'll draw an arc through there, now I'm loosely gonna go around this, just come down, see some of those roof shapes, now loose here we can be loose, but light, light, traffic lights there, one there, straight, try to keep these lines vertical, goes around, some little detail here, the emblem on the bridge, the general idea is that they're still beams. I'm just gonna put X's across there, so draw double lines across, and we'll do the same, but then we can put a cross between them, coming down the back, rectangles like this, very rough little drawings in there, so I like that feature, do that, very light though, stonework, leave a big one that we can see, maybe we can fit some red on that, and also these lines going across the building might be nice, but following that angle at the top, make them flatter, put some black lines there, across here, see how simple, I'm simplifying all of that, the main ones in the middle, and then a couple on the side, so we're gonna start with ultramarine, and then come across with cerulean blue, I should be trying to avoid the building, bring it across, continue to bring it around the building, get back in the brush, as it goes down it gets more pale, so I can take the water out, I don't need any more there, grab your paper towel, I'm gonna scrunch it up like that, so it has uneven texture on it, there, hold it, like that, and see, there's some clouds, try and make them horizontal, there's some wisps of cloud down the bottom, so if you've got turquoise in your set, we can use that, so go around the squares, don't have to have it exactly in the lines, pillars there that stick out, and there's some more blue details here, they should have the color there, hopefully it stands out on the sky, so I'm just painting two lines there on each one, so what I'm going to use is sap green, and then Payne's grey, now we're gonna paint this, this roof section here, but leave white little gaps, we're gonna use yellow ochre, Payne's grey, see how light and pale those strokes are, a little bit more, now this is where it would have been easy to accidentally go over those blue sections, now more yellow ochre, a little subtle bit more, the base structure, right in front of the building, then you can connect it, because flow that yellow ochre into the water, burnt umber, some Payne's grey, just do this whole section, just without touching a towel, so I'm gonna let that dry now, and then we'll do a few more details, of the flag, yep, got that, this is Alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow, of detail, so little bricks, and even in the background, now I can add the subtle shadows to the background, so we're gonna use mostly ultramarine for shadows today, so it's mostly ultramarine with just a little bit of permanent rose, underneath the structure here, a little bit of an angle there too, down the side of this tower, a strong angle under this one, now the final touch is highlights, and I have my uni-ball signo pen, off the top of this gold piece, or even on the top of this edge, but just around those dark windows we drew, my simplified detail, some reflections going into there, just follow those, especially in this section here where the sun is hitting that bend, it's closest to you a bit more, okay that's it, so that's how I sketch Tower Bridge using my ink and watercolor sketching technique, if you want to have the full tutorial, I've got that over on my Patreon membership, it's a lot easier to follow me there, it doesn't have all the cuts, you can follow me step by step, and I have the big reference there, also got a template you can follow along, and you can post your sketch on the community there, really lovely warm and friendly community, and you can ask me a question, and there's also a whole library of other tutorials, there are over 100 full tutorials and fundamentals which will help you if you're a beginner, otherwise thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.