Recipe Weekend: Housesketching: Learn to Create Energetic and Expressive Architectural Drawings by Albert Kiefer

   Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from Quarry books, via #netgalley, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis:

Explore creativity while learning how to draw lively, unique sketches of your favorite houses, shops, landmarks, and other buildings.
Learning to sketch can be intimidating, especially when drawing subjects like architecture that seem to rely on perfect perspective, straight lines, and complex forms. In Housesketching, artist and instructor Albert Kiefer (Housesketcher) shares his signature techniques that will enable and empower you to abandon perfectionismand learn to sketch and express yourself creatively, like his tens of thousands of students have done. Whether you work in pen and ink and alcohol markers like Albert, or use your favorite medium, you will learn how to create amazingly expressive drawings.

From his whimsical linework to his playful use of perspective to his energetic colorwork, Albert’s approach can be applied to any type or style of building—or any subject at all! Housesketching shows how to go beyond representation to create sketches that are evocative, vibrant, and completely unique.
 
With this encouraging guide, you will learn how to:
- Find inspiration and choose subjects to sketch—either en plein air or from photos
- Compose your sketch with placement, contrast, techniques for guiding the eye, and balance
- Use perspective—but only as much as you need to know—to create a convincing sketch
- Make a sketch your own through editing, exaggeration, point of view, and creating a back story
- Use  color and details to finish and embellish your sketches 
- Share your sketches online

Fifteen step-by-step projects take you through Albert’s process in detail, so you can sketch alongside him and learn what makes his drawings so dynamic. QR codes link to videos that provide further insight into essential techniques.

Whether you’re completely new to sketching, interested in learning to sketch architecture, or looking to draw more expressively and creatively, Housesketching will give you all the tools, inspiration, and encouragement you need.

Review:

This is a great book to get you to sketch what you see and the impression that it makes on you. Housesketching is about bringing out certain characteristics of places, while not being an exact drawing of them- which leads to them having more emotion intrinsically.
Kiefer gives you all the basic info you need about perspective, shading, shaping from a basic outline, and how to create the character in a building. The case studies are great as you get walked through the process, and you get to see which markers Kiefer used, to get an idea of how colors can go together to create drama in a housesketch. By giving hints on how to share on social media, he also offers some needed business advice to newbies at making their art pay for itself! Overall it's a fun way to learn something new, and I highly recommend it to the kids screaming 'I'm bored" and their parents- who knows, they might come up a with a new source of income! Pair it with his Domestika class (on sale for LESS than a dollar right now), and you have the perfect solution for Summer boredom!

About the Author:

Born in 1960, Albert Kiefer is a professional visual designer who lives and works in the Netherlands. He received a BA in arts and art history from the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht and co-founded the visual design company StormHand, worked for well over 35 years making pictures of every imaginable subject, primarily done digitally on the computer. As a professional digital artist, Albert began to miss more traditional art forms and returned to his love for sketching, which led to his popular Instagram page, Housesketcher, and to teaching his techniques for expressive sketching in his wildly popular Domestika class, “Expressive Architectural Sketching with Colored Markers.” His work is featured in two books by French publisher ELYTIS: Au Japon!, a collection of sketches of Japanese buildings, and Harley Davidson Sketchbook.