Gear for the road

Urban sketching thrives on being able to start spontaneously: at the bus stop, on a flight of stairs, in a café. That's why what counts here isn't the biggest collection of materials, but the smallest one that works reliably. In this lesson we'll put together your basic kit – with prices that are worth it, and without the ballast you'd only end up lugging around.

The sketchbook

Choose a sketchbook with paper between 200 and 300 grams per square metre. Lighter paper buckles badly as soon as water touches it, and that disrupts your drawing more than you might think at first. At 300 gsm the sheet stays reasonably flat even with several wet layers; at 200 gsm it's perfectly sufficient for loose sketches with few glazes.

When it comes to format: small beats large. A5 or even A6 fits in any jacket pocket and forces you to capture subjects quickly and to the point – exactly what you want when sketching on the go. A big book stays at home on the shelf; a small one you'll actually take with you. Look for a sturdy binding that works as a support even without a table, such as a spiral binding or a solid hardcover.

Paint and brushes

A travel paint box with 6 to 12 pans is more than enough to start with. More colours don't automatically mean better pictures – often they just mean longer decision-making in front of your subject. Pick a box that fits in one hand and whose lid doubles as a mixing palette: that saves space and weight.

With brushes, two systems compete. The water brush has a handle you fill with water; you squeeze it gently and water flows to the tip. That makes you independent of a water jar and is ideal for a bench, a kerbside or a train window. The downside: control over the amount of water is coarser, and fine lines come out less precisely. The classic brush, say size 6 or 8 with a good point, gives you more control over stroke and water quantity, but needs a container of water beside you. For getting started I recommend: a water brush for sketching on the move without a table, and a classic round brush for sessions where you have a proper place to sit.

The small tools around it

For line work you need a waterproof fineliner, around 0.3 or 0.4. Waterproof isn't a nice-to-have here, it's a must: if the ink bleeds when you lay colour over it, you lose exactly the contour that gives your sketch its structure. A soft pencil, HB or 2B, is only for the rough underdrawing, not for the finished line. A kneaded eraser lifts that underdrawing away more gently than a normal eraser and is kinder to the paper.

An absorbent rag or a piece of kitchen paper belongs in your bag too: you use it to dab excess water off the brush before applying a lighter glaze. And a simple clothes peg or book clip holds the pages of your sketchbook down in the wind – a detail you only come to appreciate the first time a page flips over while the paint is still wet.

Your basic kit for CHF 60 to 100

With a travel paint box (approx. CHF 25–40), an A5 sketchbook with 300 gsm paper (approx. CHF 15–20), a water brush (approx. CHF 8–12), a fineliner (approx. CHF 5) plus a pencil, kneaded eraser and clip from the drawer at home, you're fully equipped. This combination fits into a small shoulder bag and will last you years.

What you don't need

At the start, skip the big box with 24 or more colours, several brush sizes at once, masking fluid, special effect papers or an easel set. None of that solves a single beginner's problem – those almost always arise with line, the water-to-paint ratio and composition, not with missing materials. Better to buy a second sketchbook when the first is full than a second set of paints that just sits on the shelf.

Exercise

Pack your basic kit and find a spot by a window or on a balcony with a view of a street, a courtyard or a few rooftops. Set a timer for 15 minutes. Use the fineliner to roughly sketch the outlines of what you see, without a pencil underdrawing. Then take your brush and lay a loose layer of colour over it using a maximum of three colours. It's not about a perfect picture, it's about having held every tool in your hand once.

Key takeaways

A small kit means a low threshold, and that's the one you'll actually take with you. Paper from 200 gsm upwards and a waterproof fineliner are the two things you shouldn't skimp on. More colours won't solve a beginner's problem – more practice will.