Line and Wash – Urban Landscape Sketching

This workshop focuses on developing fast, loose urban landscape sketching using a direct line-and-wash approach.

Participants will learn to quickly capture the essence of urban scenes through simplified drawing, confident line work, and intuitive composition, rather than detailed realism.

The watercolour element introduces rapid, expressive washes over ink drawings to build atmosphere, depth, and energy, with an emphasis on speed, simplicity, and embracing natural variation in the medium.

By the end of the session, participants will begin to see how everyday urban environments can be transformed into dynamic, living sketchbook pages—where quick marks, movement, and colour bring streets, buildings, and moments to life on the page.

This workshop is suitable for beginners through to intermediate sketchers. Participants should be able to sit or stand and draw for short periods.

Materials provided but attendees are welcome to bring their own

About your workshop leader:

Neil Whitehead is a British contemporary artist based in Taunton whose expressive artworks capture the energy and atmosphere of city streets through bold colour and fluid mark-making. He is a Derwent Brand Ambassador, author of Line and Wash in the Urban Landscape, and has taught at Urban Sketching events across Europe.