There are a lot of very encouraging reviews on, and just inside, the cover of Abrams' reasonably thick book on city sketching which extol, as you might imagine, the value of a book that celebrates the connection between a drawing hand, and the thoughts and ideas of a designer. Given its size, I was a little surprised by the scope of its content that is very much targeted at beginners. We move from sharpening pencils and line weights, through to drawing an elevation, preparing a section and then plans. We shift from axonometrics to drawing various perspectives followed by a clear exposition of tone which, when used well, can clearly help an image to ping. Constrained by the format, I did possibly miss something about when and how to use colour. The book then moves to a slightly odd section on chiaroscuro, which I suppose would help those compelled to draw at night, and a section somewhat unusually called 'analytique' that offers suggestions on how to compose a single page that combines various images to tell a story about a building or urban space in a clear, legible and attractive way. So far, so architectural. Eventually, the book becomes, might I say finally, a little more urban, but only by suggesting how a spatial sequence might be celebrated, or for those of us who are more Cullenesque, how to prepare and draw attention to the qualities of 'serial vision'.
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