Urban Sketching Workshops

Sunday, May 17, 2026 from 9am to 12noon

Location: NW Portland, OR

When out and about urban sketching you won’t always have several hours at your disposal—but that doesn’t mean you can’t capture the place in a quick, playful way. In this workshop, we’ll explore expressive architectural vignettes with a focus on linear perspective. Join us to learn how to distill complex scenes into playful sketches that are both efficient and full of character.

Saturday, June 6, 2026 from 9am to 12pm
Location: Downtown Portland

Typical American streets are made up of familiar, repeating elements: sidewalks, buildings, trees, parked cars, pedestrians, and urban details like benches, signs, and streetlights. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to bring these everyday scenes to life using one-point perspective.

Through a clear, step-by-step approach, we’ll construct a perspective grid and use it to accurately place each element within the scene. You’ll develop an understanding of how scale and proportion work together, ensuring that every object—from buildings to figures—fits naturally within the environment and maintains spatial consistency.

Saturday, May 23, 2026 from 10am to 1pm

Location: Lan Su Chinese Garden

In this workshop, we’ll explore how to use composition tools to achieve dramatic drawings. We will use the Chinese garden as our classroom, learning to identify what deserves attention and how to make it stand out.

We’ll begin by understanding how to find your focal point: the element in your scene that carries the emotional or narrative weight. Rather than drawing everything equally, you’ll practice selecting and emphasizing what matters most. From there, we’ll experiment with a range of composition tools that artists use to create drama and visual impact.

Through guided exercises and observational drawing, you’ll learn how to move beyond simply recording what you see, and instead compose images that command attention, evoke mood, and create drama.

Please note that the entry fee to the garden is not included in the cost of the workshop.

Thursday, July 2, 2026 from 5pm to 8pm
Location: Pearl District

This workshop will address one of sketchers’ major headaches–drawing people in motion. Drawing convincing human postures and gestures requires one to rely on a solid visual vocabulary of people in specific circumstances. We will explore shortcuts for drawing people by creating a vocabulary of gestures , so next time you are see a crowd of people you calmly pull out a sketchbook and say to yourself “I can do this!”

Saturday, August 1, 2026 from 9am to 12 noon

Location: Portland Marina

Rivers, lakes, and bays make for a perfect urban setting on a warm summer day, but how do you capture this liquid perfection and everything that is reflected in it with mastery and ease? In this workshop we will enjoy a beautiful morning on a shore learning how to convincingly portray water and objects that are reflected in it.

Saturday, August 8, 2026 from 9am to 12pm

Location: Portland, OR

Our city is defined by its iconic bridges—but drawing them isn’t always easy. With overlapping forms, dense detail, and challenging angles, it’s common to feel overwhelmed before even beginning.

In this workshop, we’ll explore how to draw complex structures in perspective using an intuitive approach. Rather than getting lost in detail, we’ll focus on understanding relative angles and simplifying complex structures.

Equally important, you’ll learn when to fully define elements and when to simply suggest them—guiding the viewer’s eye while keeping your sketches fresh, dynamic, and expressive. Through hands-on exercises, clear explanations, and demos you will gain confidence in tackling complex architectural forms in perspective.

Saturday, August 22, 2026 from 9am to 12pm
Location: Oregon City

Creating rich darks and using a wide range of values is one of the best ways to increase the drama and “organize” your composition. This workshop will teach you how to look creatively in dark shadows and grey walls producing sketches that are bursting with color, life and personality despite the grey subject matter.

Saturday, September 26, 2026 from 9am to 12 noon

Location: PSU Farmers Market

Sketching a person engaged in activity not only creates a visually captivating scene but also instantly transports viewers into the heart of a narrative. In this workshop, we'll delve into the art of finding and drawing characters that feel organic, alive, and relatable. We will explore strategies for showing movement from capturing a simple gesture to expanding it into a full story. We will be covering realistic proportions, gestural drawing, and tricks for showing movement and personality.

Sunday, September 12, 2026 from 9am to 12pm
Location: Downtown Portland

In this workshop, we’ll turn our attention to capturing the excitement of one of Portland’s signature summer events—the Dragon Boat Races. With fast-paced action, vibrant boats, and a festive atmosphere, there’s no shortage of visual information.

Creating an illustrated reportage of a live event is one of the most exhilarating challenges for a sketcher. In this session, you’ll learn how the essential tools of illustrated reportage. We will observe, select, and quickly record key moments as they unfold.

Thursday, October 1, 2026 from 5:30-8:30pm
Location: Downtown Portland

As daylight fades, dramatic shifts begin to transform the colors of the sky and the world around us. In this special night sketching session, we’ll explore how to capture the evolving atmosphere of the evening—from warm sunset, to soft dusk, to luminous blue hour, and finally into darkness.

Through color mixing demos and quick studies we will learn how to translate these fleeting moments into expressive sketches, focusing on color, value, and mood rather than detail. We’ll look at how light shapes what we see—and how to suggest it effectively using watercolor.

Save money by registering for more than one at a time. Pick 5 workshops that work for your schedule and budget or sign up for all 10 to get a full menu of topics.