LESSON XII - Part 1: Sketchbook Exercises of Buildings, Houses, & Churches

Get your sketchbook, pen & pencil, charcoal, and even your paints and a brush, and head outside for some drawing of buildings -- both rural and urban.  You'll be drawing houses, barns, city blocks, churches, and other public buildings.  You'll even be drawing boxes and building blocks -- any kind of structure will do.  On days that you can't get outside, just look at photos for your reference.

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1)  Draw a house, or a part of a house, in pencil.  Draw your own home, or someone else's, from life -- adding shading with your pencil.  Date it, and write a sentence about where you are, in your sketchbook . . .

2)  Using a black ballpoint pen, draw a public building, or part of a building -- from life, if possible.  Use cross-hatching to build up the values . . . 

3)  With a pencil, draw a building from the front, and include some of the surrounding environment.  This can be a church, a lighthouse, a public building.  Try to draw from life, but if this is not possible, use a photo as reference.  Be sure to write a note on your page, just indicating where it is and when you drew it . . . 

4)  With a felt pen, draw an old rural building, like a barn, shed, or cabin.  Or, draw a block of old buildings in a little town.  Try to draw from life, if possible -- and write a sentence at the bottom of your page, indicating something about where you were, the date, and even what the weather was like.

5)  Pile up a bunch of boxes, and do a contour drawing of them, with a felt pen.  If you have kids around, you could use their building blocks.  This is a little like drawing city buildings.

6)  In pencil, draw a city block of buildings, from above.  Add shading with pencil.  This is best done from a photograph.  All the better if you can do a night scene of the city block.

BONUS PAINTING CHALLENGE -- Turn your sketch of a city scene, into a painting . . . 

"New York City Lights", watercolor by Pat Howard 22" x 30"

7)  Try some perspective exercises, with charcoal pencil or graphite pencil.  For these exercises, just look at and copy my sketches . . . 

(V.P. stands for Vanishing Point)

8)  Using a charcoal pencil or stick, draw a close-up of a building, deck, or porch.  Smudge the lines for shading.  This will be an abstract drawing, so concentrate on geometric shapes and lines, rather than any details . . .