Review: Ian Fennelly's Urban Sketching Sunflower Edition

Big thanks for Brenda Murray from Studio 56 Boutique for providing the online course for review

Ian Fennelly is an artist, teacher and urban sketcher from UK. His style for urban sketching uses thin intricate lines with beautiful blending watercolours on top. From what I can see, he does a lot of painting workshops focusing on urban sketching so I'm kinda surprised he has a course on painting flowers, in this case, sunflowers.

Anyway, this is one of many online art courses he has. The others are urban sketching related. Each course is priced at US $39.99.

The urban sketching part of the course Urban Sketching Sunflower Edition is probably added to ride the popularity of urban sketching. When I think of urban sketching, I think of being outdoors. This course is on drawing still life from observation while you're indoors.

The course is 1hr 47min long and is broken into two parts, each with several lessons. The first part is the warm up session where you draw the sunflower with pen, ink and markers (Tombow brush pens). It teaches the basics of drawing and how to use tonal values to create contrast.

The second part of the course is drawing and painting the sunflowers with watercolours. Here you'll learn how to think of colours, how to blend them and have fun with the painting process. What I like about this course is you get to see how he paints, and how he interprets his subjects. He's not making an exact copy of the sunflower he sees but adding his own personal interpretation and style. You'll be able to learn how he approaches the subject and the techniques he uses.

The course is insightful and easy to follow along so it's suitable for beginners. All you need are the right tools and colours which are all listed on the website.

The price of the course is quite reasonable. If it's a real life course, it may be priced the same or even more expensive.

You can find this course at Studio 56 Boutique, as well as other courses from other instructors too.