Loose Ink & Watercolor Sketching Tutorial l How to Sketch a Café

Urban sketching is usually done on-location with a group of sketchers but over the last few years there have been many sketchers doing virtual urban sketching, some even using Google maps(mostly triggered by lockdowns), thus the term “urban sketching at home”. #uskathome

One of my favourite things to do over the past year has been sketching with ink and watercolor. For me, it is really relaxing and stress-free art.
Freedom to express yourself and permission to revel in the beauty of a place. What’s not to love?

I hope you enjoy sketching as much as I do with these tips and tricks.

Materials used

Do like, comment and subscribe if you found this video helpful to you. Thanks for watching!

Time stamps
0:00 Intro
0:26 Art Materials
2:32 Color Mixing
3:13 Base layer
5:21 Pen & Inking
9:30 Painting the Blue
10:35 Painting the Brown
11:24 Painting the Green
12:27 Painting the Yellow
12:50 Shadows
13:02 Painting the Darkest parts and details
14:22 Review
14:47 Refinement

Music

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[JilleeArts]

Thank you everyone for all the love for this video! I can’t believe this has reached so many people over the past few months🤯

As I mentioned before in a subsequent video, I would like to clarify that technically, urban sketching is done on-location, however the time when I was doing this sketch and video, “urban sketching at home” was trending due to covid lockdowns and people being stuck at home and not being able to go outside to sketch.#uskathome I do sketch(urban sketch) outside when I have the opportunity, but when I don’t have hours of free time to travel and sketch outside, I go back to sketching at home and imagining I am in those places in the pictures. I love urban sketchers, I respect and look up to many of them, and would love to join on-location sketching with real people more often.

It is amazing to be able to meet so many beautiful and kind souls on this channel. Your words of encouragement and sharing of experiences means a lot, and I hope we can continue to grow and inspire each other❤️

[ahsansaifi]

One thing I would like to say for beginners is don't be afraid of making mistakes. Cause as a beginner you can never run away from them even professionals make mistakes. And that what makes the artist to grow. For beginners like me tend to get very anxious about their art which result in even poor quality of art than they can do. For me when i stopped caring about the outcome but rather tried to understand the process and tried to learn from my mistakes that's when my art started to improve. We'll I'm not a professional so it's just my POV.

[Rhynni]

I have never thought of laying down washes of colour first, then drawing in the lines, before going in again with further details. This would be helpful, especially when you have time limits when you're out and about doing urban sketching! Thank you, I will try this next time!

[starlightsonata]

So beautiful. I love these kind of watercolor scenes. So inspiring, relaxing, cozy, ugh, loved it so much.

[harmonised]

One of the most beautiful line and wash videos I've ever seen. The greenery and plants surely help popularise and make this gorgeous painting so good, as does your fluid, relaxed and professional looking style! Stunning work indeed!!

[jana]

I’ve gone back in history to find this video and hopefully encourage you further in what you do with my comment. Your video randomly popped up on my Home Screen and I’ve immediately fell in love with urban watercolor/ink sketching. Within days I’ve bought all the supplies I could get my hands on (I’ve not done any painting since highschool) and finished my first paining yesterday. You’ve changed things for me! Thanks a lot for this.

[djmandyland]

Her "Overall I think it's ok". Me- "This is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen!!" haha

[oceanofknowledge]

So I tried this today ( never paint with water colors before)and the result was just mind-blowing. I followed your technique and drew the exact way. Although I used different color combinations because I have limited colors but the painting came out with such a nice combination of colors. I really appreciate your technique which is so easy to follow step by step.

[KellyShen-vi]

just did my first loose ink watercolour following this tutorial! it turned out to be quite successful!! it made me realise this is the type of watercolour i like! gonna try more watching your videos! thanks!

[thuthuyhoang]

I believe that the first phase is the hardest since you have to put watercolor in the proper place at the right ratio! Your painting inspires me a lot. Thank youuuu

[julien_o_]

This is so beautiful. I really like how you take the time to carefully layer all the colours and details.

[Aritul]

I had never seen the technique of painting the canvas before drawing before. What a neat way to accomplish these sketches.

[John-ito]

Thank you for your quiet lesson. I really like presenters who stick to the subject and not get "chatty". Refreshing.

[layalsasso]

This is amazing! I just started watercolors this month and after a few weeks of experimenting with flowers and trying different techniques, I felt brave enough to try this! It's nowhere near as perfect (i was too scared to add in a human and too many details) but I'm super proud of it! Gonna study more technical aspects such as shading and structure, but this motivated me to keep going!

[sirjonaz]

I found this very inspiring. You make it look so easy and effortless. Good tips on choice of paper.

[madhumitasarkar]

Wow... this is perfect for beginners
I never thought of doing such low sketches
Thanks it helped alot... it's so aesthetic and this type of technique is so suitable for my journal (my journal's paper are quite thick for water colour)
I appreciate my yt algorithm to recommend this...i literally had an art block but now i am inspired so much

[sowmyareddy]

I actually tried this bc i was bored, but it came out stunning ! I dint expect myself to do that good as it was my first time with watercolour since i usually paint ghibli scenes with gouche. Thank you soo much for this stunning piece and the way u explained step by step made it really clear and soothing. All the best for your channel ❤❤!

[savannahkrueger]

I was inspired to buy a dip pen after seeing this video. I've never used a fountain pen or dip pen of any kind before. I went with the speedball sketching pen set and black velvet waterproof india ink. So far, I have only tried the smallest point nib in the package, but I am absolutely in LOVE with the way the ink flows off the tines and deposits onto the paper. So SMOOTH and the line is so so fine! Easily down to a 0.01 line. And using this along with my watercolor markers... I can't get home from work soon enough!

[ferdaneferdane]

Thank you so much for this watercolor tutorial! I followed along and recreated the painting! My painting didn’t turn out as perfect as yours, and I know I still have a lot to practice, but your guidance really helped me add much more depth to my work. I appreciate your tips and look forward to improving with more practice!

[UshnishChatterjee]

This looks so beautiful! I'm actually drawing this right now while watching the video because I want to display it in my room.