Sketching Cape Cod: Developing Urban Sketching Skills with Richard Tichnor

In the warmth of the classroom and throughout the museum’s seven galleries, we will develop and refine the drawing skills essential to urban sketching. Urban sketching is the practice of drawing the world around you as you experience it, capturing everyday scenes, places, people, and moments through on-location sketches. It’s a wonderful way to make drawing part of your daily art practice, document your surroundings, or preserve memories from your travels and vacations.

Classes will include warm-up exercises, instruction in perspective and shading techniques, and opportunities to sketch from photographs. These foundational skills will prepare us to take our sketchbooks outdoors for future spring and summer classes, bringing our drawing practice into the world around us.

Offered in conjunction with the exhibition The Present of Presence: Live the Moment, this course invites artists to explore presence, attention, and the beauty of now.

Materials

8 1/2" x 11" sketchbook, pencils, and soft or gummy erasers are recommended.  For pens, Tichnor likes Pigma Micron 02 and Ultra Fine Point Sharpies. 

Richard Tichnor is an Architect. He completed his studies in the Master of Architecture program at UC Berkeley and at the Boston Architectural Center. He is the illustrator and co-author of the children's picture book, A Spark in the Dark (which is included on Mike Pinder (of the Moody Blues) Benjamin Franklin Award-winning A Planet with One Mind).

From 2015 to 2025, Tichnor taught Architectural Design at Nauset High School in collaboration with the Cape Cod Modern House Trust. He is also the creator of the cartoon Shark Cove, which appears weekly in the Cape Cod Chronicle.

Cancellation policy: CCMoA must be notified 1 week prior for a refund.