Acclaimed Royal Academy artist Jeanette Barnes and Paul Brandford breathe new life into sketching for town and city dwellers everywhere.

Mercurial, inspirational, practical and charming, this guide covers everything from architecture to accidental paintings, cocktails to clouds, smudges to skyscrapers. With easily digested bite-size entries, it introduces many types of art materials, their uses and a number of insights and exercises to build confidence in a range of approaches to drawing. For the more experienced sketcher, the artists discuss the processes behind drawing and strategies to inject more creativity and open-mindedness about how to take a drawing forward.

With great charm, the book gives a window onto the experiences of Jeanette, who has travelled to many cities worldwide in search of inspiring city subjects and a half-decent cocktail. Full of tips and ideas about working on location and back in the studio, this book is filled with the scribbles, sketches and preparatory drawings that feed into the larger works for which she is known.

As a whole, the book is a multipurpose tool which can be used to unlock the potential of drawing both technically and philosophically so that the reader can be the architect of their own drawing experience rather than the recipient of someone else’s. After thirty years of drawing, many of them teaching, the authors still feel an excitement when picking up a pencil or some charcoal. This book gives every reader the chance to share that excitement and bring urban living to life.