6 Easy City Sketching Ideas for Autumn (No Experience Needed)
Autumn is a good time to sketch a city: the light is low and soft, the colours are warm and the weather gives you a reason to sit in a café. Here are six easy ideas, from a street corner to a café window, each one possible in under an hour.
Before you go
- A small sketchbook, one pen and a thin wash of one warm colour.
- A hat or gloves; hands get cold quickly.
- A time limit: 30–40 minutes per idea.
1. A street corner with fallen leaves
Choose a corner with a building, a tree and a bit of pavement. Draw the building as one big box, then the tree trunk, then scatter a few leaves on the pavement. Colour the leaves with a single warm wash.
2. A café window
Sit inside and draw the window frame, the glass and what's behind it. Put your cup in the foreground to give the page depth. It is warm, quick and nobody looks at you.
3. A tree-lined street
Draw the street as a long wedge: lines converge toward a point. Place the trees in a row and make each one slightly smaller than the one before.
4. A wet pavement and its reflections
After rain, draw the upside-down reflections of lamps and windows in the puddles. Keep them simpler than the real thing.
5. Lit windows at dusk
Stand across from a building and wait for the lights to come on. Draw the dark shape of the building, then paint the lit windows in yellow. It's one of the most satisfying sketches you can make in ten minutes.
6. An autumn market stall
Fruit, pumpkins and flowers are full of colour. Draw one stall with its awning, its crates and one or two things on display.
Draw it, then pin it on the map
Each of these ideas is better when you keep the place and the date. In SketchMap Atlas, a free app for sketchers, you photograph the page and pin the sketch where you drew it, then see how other artists drew their own streets.
Tips for cold-weather sketching
- Draw smaller than you think: a postcard-sized page is easier to finish.
- Use a pen, not a pencil: a pencil line is hard to see in dim light.
- Don't aim for accuracy; aim for mood.
- Take a photo of the scene so you can finish at home.
Keep your autumn pages together
SketchMap Atlas keeps the pages with a place and a date, so next autumn you can see where you drew each one. The weekly challenge offers a simple new theme each week, with a gallery of everyone's answers, and any page can be hidden from the shared map so that only you see it. The free plan keeps up to 30 works and 3 folders. You can browse the map without signing in.
More to explore
- 30 City Sketch Prompts: more street details to draw.
- Places: see how artists drew their own streets.
- the gallery: classic sketches to study before you go out.
Questions
What's the easiest thing to sketch in a city?
A window, a door or a bench: fixed shapes that don't move.
Should I use colour?
One warm wash is enough, and it is hard to go wrong with it.
Illustrations in this article are AI-generated (Google Flow).
