Learn to Draw Buildings : The Fundamentals of Drawing Buildings with Confidence

1. Introduction: Hello. My name is Minakhi. I welcome you all to my class. I'm an artist and an illustrator. I love to draw and paint. I work on acrylics, watercolors and pen and ink drawings. Today's class is going to be about sketching buildings, using drawing pens. Have you ever wanted to draw buildings, but you're not able to because you're scared to take your pen, then this class is for you. I have designed this class for beginners, so you'll be learning right from the basics. We will be starting with some practice exercises where we will learn to draw buildings using basic shapes. Slowly, we will learn to draw realistic buildings step by step. I will cover each section in detail. We will learn in depth on drawing windows, doors, balcony, and roofs. I will also teach you how to add patterns to your building so that your sketch will look more realistic. This is totally a fun class. If you think this class is for you, let's meet in the next lesson. 2. Materials Required: Let's now take a look on the materials required for the class. You'll need a sketchbook to practice some doodles. I love using my sketchbook for my floral illustration projects, and I also practice on my sketchbook. Mine is a very normal 130 GSM medium surface sketchbook. I use this for pencil and charcoal art and also pen and ink sketches. I've also used ivory sheets for these projects. I love using ivory sheets because they are generally thick and they are very smooth, but it is totally up to your choice. You can use any paper. You'll need a pencil and an eraser to draw some outlines, and you'll also need a scale to help you draw some lines for the buildings. Don't be shy to use a scale if it makes your drawing better. You'll need drawing pens to do your sketch. I'll be using Faber castle and pigma micron for my drawing. You'll need various sizes. Here is for your better understanding. You can see the difference for different sizes of pens. You know, the size S and Xs has much difference. The larger pens I use for highlights, and the smaller pens I used to make shadows and some minute details. Grab your supplies, and let's get started to draw some beautiful buildings. 3. Build your House using Shapes : In this lesson, let's take a look on how to build a house using basic shaves. Using a scale, I'm drawing four lines. If you are a beginner, I suggest you use your pencil first. This lesson is going to be very simple, so you can use your pen directly or you can just use your pencil first and then use your pen. It is up to you. Instead of viewing a house as a complex structure, I want you to break it down into simple shapes. Now, let's try to be creative and use different shapes to build a house. In this case, I'm drawing a rectangle for the frame of the house, and I'm doing a triangle on the top for the roof. Here I'm drawing a rectangle, again, a rectangle, but this time, it's going to be like a sleeping rectangle and on top of it, a roof. You can try to be creative and try using different shapes in different designs, even though it might not look realistic, like what I'm doing now. You know, it's like an inverted cone shape for the frame of the house. Even though it's not realistic, I like to draw such houses for my doodles. So this house is kind of an elongated hut you can change the size, the width, the height, the designs, the shapes, and create variations. We're just practicing. Feel free to be creative. Here I'm going to make a really cute, small, circular shaped hut. So this will be the basic frame of the house. In the next lesson, let's go one step further to create realistic building. 4. Add Simple Windows and Doors: Et's try adding some simple windows and doors for our house. I start by drawing a roof, and then the frame of the house. I'm drawing a semicircle for the door and four tiny squares for the windows. You can try different shapes to make your house. Right now I'm making a rectangular shape, a standing rectangle for the frame of the house, and I'm making an inverted cone for the roof. Instead of making the roof a triangular shape, I'm trying a double line for the roof. For the door, I'm making a standing rectangle. For the windows, I'm trying it with triangles. Right now we are just doodling, so we need not try to make it more realistic, so you can just play with the shapes. You can try different shapes, different designs, and come up with your own house. Here, I try to make a heart shaped structure. So I draw the roof first with a little curb on the sides and some zigzag on the bottom and the top and a rectangle on the bottom for the frame of the house. I make the door, and I give a carrom effect for the windows. U. You can also try incorporating two different structures for the same house like what I'm doing now. You know, I first draw a structure which is on the front with some windows and a door, and then I'm drawing a structure which is behind. So this is going to be behind the front frame. I'm making the roof for it and the rectangular frame for the house. In the next lesson, we'll try to make our doodles a bit more realistic by adding some more details to the windows and the doors. 5. Defined Windows and Doors : How to make defined windows and doors? It's just by adding double lines. Also, you can try incorporating various elements like you can add stones around the doors. You can add the sunshade, and also you can make the doors even more dramatic by adding double lines, and you can make balcony instead of making a simple window. So the sky is the limit. You can try different methods and different elements to make your drawing even more realistic. So come let's make do this together. Don't be shy to use your scale. Whenever I make building doodles, I like to use my scale, so I often use my scales for drawing houses and buildings. I'm trying to draw a two storey building, so I'm drawing a rectangle to separate the two. Instead of using a simple shape for the door, you can try different elements like a sunshade, I'm making a simple semicircular pattern for the sunshade, and then I make the door. And on the top, I make a triangular shape for the roof. Below that, I'm making a double line to connect the roof to the building. Here I make two small windows, square shaped windows. As you said before, doing double lines gives a more detailed look for your buildings. So I'm just making double lines and a center line with a knob. I thought of trying a cartoonistic building, and for that, I'm making a double curve for the roof. I thought of adding a small structure on the center of the roof to make it more dramatic. I'm making a somewhat a conical rectangular shape with a double curve on the top with a small square shaped structure within it. I'm using a scale to connect the roof to the ground. Instead of making a straight line, I'm making the frame a little bit slanting to make it more cartoonistic. You can also try making a curved door instead of a square or rectangle. I'm adding stones around the door, and for that, I'm making small tiny little squares around the door. One tip here is you can use a pencil to draw a guideline and go over the pen after that by adding small tiny little squares. I'm making two semicircular windows. So that's how you're going to make fancy buildings like incorporating various elements like sunshades, stones, et cetera, and by using double lines. I get rid of the guideline using an eraser. Let's try one more building. And for that, I'm making a rectangle standing rectangle for the frame of the building, a double line which connects the frame of the building to the roof. I'm drawing two slanting lines for the roof. Instead of drawing a simple window, let's try to draw a balcony here. And for that, I start with a small window, and then I make little curves on the bottom line and a horizontal line which connects all the curves. This line can be a little bit thicker to give dimension to your drawing, and also I make a small knob on either side. I'm making double lines for the window as usual, and I make a cartoonistic door on the bottom. 6. Add Exhausts and Patterns on the Roofs: In this lesson, we will try including exhaust to our building, and also we will try adding some designs on our roofs. I start by making a simple frame for my house. And then I make a small step on the bottom. And then I'm making a rectangular frame for my house. For the door, I'm making a semicircle on the top. I'm making some designs. And then I'm making some double vertical lines on the bottom of the door. You can leave the door as it is, or you can make a line on the center with a knob. I'm making a window on the other side of the house a double line for the window with some sections on it. Now comes the cool part. I'm going to make patterns on the roof. This is going to be a semicircular pattern. I'm just filling the roof with a lot of semicircles. This part is totally meditating, so I love filling the roofs with patterns. So this is going to be our first house. Let's try another building. I start with a step on the bottom and a conical shape on the top, for the roof. I make double lines for the roof. I connect the lines. I'm using a curve to connect the roof to the bottom. This gives a cartoon effect to our doodle. And I make the door. I make double lines for the door. And I also make few sections on the door with a knob. Now I want to make a big window. This is going to be a semicircular window. I make double lines for it again, and I'm making a lot of sections on the window. Few horizontal and vertical lines which intersect each other. I'm making step like patterns on the roof. This is because of the view of the house. It is a front view on which we are drawing. So because of that, we do this pattern. I'm also adding an exhaust to it. A small rectangular shape, which connects to the roof. This time, let's try to draw a cafe. As always, I start with a small step on the bottom, and I'm making another small rectangle on the top. I'm making a curved shape pattern for the roof. This gives a more dramatic effect. I also make a couple of slanting lines on top. I want to give this pattern because it is a cafe. I'm making a bigger rectangle below the roof, which connects to the bottom. I would like to add a sunset for the door and a couple of vertical lines for the door. On the side, I'm going to make a window with a sunshade. Again, I'm going to make a rectangle for the window with double lines. You can leave it as it is, or you can add a screen to it, and I'm writing coffee on top of the roof. I'm drawing a few standing lines below the roof to just a pattern to give a more dramatic effect to our building. So that's the next lesson, we will see some examples and make our building even more bigger. 7. Let's Draw a Cafe: Using the techniques we learned in the previous lessons, let's try to draw a cafe. This time, we are going to try making the buildings a little bit bigger than before. I start by drawing a horizontal line for the step. I'm using a pencil to draw because I can always go back and change it if I don't like it. I make a double line for the roof. I'm drawing a small rectangle on the top of the building for a name board called cafe. I make horizontal lines on either side of the name board which connects the name board to the building. We're just done with the top part of the building. Now, let's do the frame of the building. I'm drawing a very light horizontal line for the sunshade. I'm making cup shaped patterns over the entire area for the sunshade. These semicircles are all of same size and they are parallel to each other. The guideline helps us to maintain the same length for all the semicircles. Now that we are done, I'm going to connect the top to the bottom using a couple of lines. And then I'm making a rectangular door. I'm making double lines. A couple of windows on either side. I use a scale to trace out the location of my previous window so that both the windows look similar. You can try different styles for the windows. Like, you can draw the windows as if it is open or you can add screens to the windows, like what I'm doing now. I am making a couple of screens to the other window as well. I'm writing Cafe to the name board. With this, we are done with Outline. I'm going to pen this using my 0.4 drawing pen. I'm just going over the pencil marks using my pen. Let's now try to add some patterns and shading to our drawing. I'm using my same drawing pen, and I'm making double line for the name board. To make patterns, I changed my drawing pen to a smaller size 05 of pigma micron, and I'm drawing some horizontal lines all over the top part of the cafe. I'm just filling the entire top section with these horizontal lines. And on the bottom step, I'm making vertical lines. All these lines are parallel to each other. They are evenly spaced. I enjoy making patterns to the buildings because it's totally a meditative process. Also, it elevates the view of the sketch. I'm using a black color brush pin to fill the sunshade. You can fill alternative semicircles. This will give a more realistic look to our building. Also, when you fill a space with black color, it elevates the look of your sketch. I always like to fill some areas of my sketch entirely black so that, you know, the entire drawing looks elevated. You can also add some elements outside the building so that your drawing looks more realistic. In this case, I'm going to add two trees on either side of the cafe, one tree which is very big and one tree which is small. I'm using my medium sized drawing pen to draw the trees. I'm drawing the leaves over the guideline. I just make some leaf like structure over the outline that I have drawn before. In case if you're interested to learn how to draw trees, I suggest you to visit my previous class where I describe in detail how to draw trees. Finally, I do the stem for the tree. Similarly, I draw the other tree starting from the top. I go over the guideline using my pen. So it's going to be a lot of triangular shaped structures, starting from a tiny triangle to a white triangle at the bottom. Tiny triangle at the top, to a white triangle at the bottom. Finally, I do the stem. I also make some crosses on the ground. Get rid of the unwanted pencil marks using an eraser. For the shading part, I'm using my smallest pen 05 of Pigma Micron. I start by shading the door. I'm using a technique called hatching where I draw tiny little lines parallel to each other. I turn the paper and I draw one more set of lines which are perpendicular to the previously drawn lines. I'm also using hatching technique to one side of the building. So I'm just making some slanting lines on one side of the building. Also in the windows, I'm trying to make it a little bit darker by adding some shadows. So how do we make shadows by drawing lines which are parallel to each other? In case if you want to make a certain area even more darker to express deep shadows, you can make use of a technique called cross hatching where you can draw one more set of lines which intersects the previously drawn lines. Below the sunshade, there's going to be a lot of shadows. And for that, I'm using this cross hatching technique. I'm turning my paper and drawing another set of lines which intersects the previously drawn lines. Our cafe is now ready. The next lesson, let's try drawing a house. 8. Let's draw a House- Part 1: Having learned the basics, let's try to dive into a bigger project. This time, I'm planning to draw a bigger house. I draw a line for the frame of the house, and then I draw the roof of the house. The roof is again in a triangular shape, an irregular triangular shape. One side of the roof is small than the other side. This is just to create some variation. Now, we connect the roof to the ground. I want this house to have two sections, one on the front and one behind. So I'm drawing the part which is behind now. So this is going to be like a normal, you know, rectangular shape for the roof with a double line which separates the frame to the roof. On the bottom, I'm going to draw a step. Since this house is two section, the bottom step is going to be much higher for the frontal section than the portion which is behind. I'm going to make a door with a sunshade. Maybe a small sunshade this time. A couple of lines to connect the sunset to the bottom. Below the door, I'm going to draw a step. I'm making double lines for the door. With this, a door is completed, and I'm drawing my windows. I would like to add a big window for this house, so I'm making an elongated, semicircular shape with a slab at the bottom. I want to cover around the top part of the window with stones. So I'm drawing a simple curve to act as a guideline, and I'm filling the top part of the window with stones. You know, for stones, I'm just drawing some tiny little square shaped structures. I'm making the window with double lines, and I'm dividing the window into many sections using vertical and horizontal lines. I want to add another window to the side, and this is going to be exactly the same as the first one, an elongated semicircle. M. With the slab at the bottom, I'm making the window with double lines, dividing it into many section using horizontal and vertical lines, and I'm adding stones, which covers the top part of the window. I'm making another window to the portion which is behind, and it's also going to be exactly the same as the previous windows we drawn. Once you're done with the basic outline, you can go back and check if there is any changes needed to the outline. We are done with a basic sketch of the house. Let's do some extra elements like fences and trees. To draw the fence, I'm drawing a very light horizontal line to act as a guide. With that as a guide, I'm drawing an elongated semicircular shaped structures on either side of the house. All these structures are similar to each other, so you can always go back and change the size if they are not similar. It should be of same length. It should be of same width. I finally connect all the fences with horizontal lines. Maybe on the side, I'm going to draw some bushes and trees to make the drawing even more realistic. Our basic sketch is now done. In the next lesson, we will pen this drawing. 9. Let's draw a House- Part 2: To pen my house, I'm using my medium sized drawing pen. I just go over the outline with my pen. Once you're done with the outline, let's do the sunshade. I draw a few lines which goes over the direction of the sunshade itself from the left towards the right. And I colour alternatively with black I get trade off the pens and marks using an eraser. Then I use my smallest pin to do some patterns on my fence. I just draw vertical lines which are very closely spaced with each other. This will give you that wooden effect to the fence. This process is completely meditating. As for me, I love drawing patterns for my buildings rather than drawing the building itself. You can also draw some patterns on the horizontal lines which connect the fence together. I'm going to draw some pattern on the step as well. These are just standing lines evenly spaced with each other. I'm using a shading technique to shade the door. So I'm drawing a set of lines which are parallel to each other. And I turn my paper and I draw one more set of lines which intersects the previously drawn lines. This technique is called a cross hatching. Again, I do some patterns on the slab of the windows, just tiny little lines. Then I'm going to do some patterns on the bottom part of the house. For this, I'm using my big sized pen of fiber castle, and I just draw some circles all over the lower part. This will create a beautiful texture to our building. These are some of my ideas. You can even try something new of yourself, like you can draw some lines or can draw some curves, it is up to you. As you can see, this pattern is lifting the whole sketch up. Once you're done with the stones, let's do the roof of the house. For this, I'm using my drawing pen of size 0.4, and I'm just making some slanted semicircular shaped patterns all over the roof. O. For the other part of the roof, I'm just filling the entire roof with black color. You can turn the paper whenever needed and just fill the entire roof with black. I'm filling with black here also. I'm changing my pen to 005, and I make some patterns to the stones on the windows, small, simple lines. I'm adding some shading to the building which is behind because it's going to have a lot of shadows. Also to the section which is below the roof, they will have a lot of shadows, so I'm just making some parallel lines. I'm drawing some straight lines below the other roof as well. I'm giving some shading to the windows. With this, we're done with our shading, and let's move on to the trees. I'm using my drawing pen of size 01, and I'm making the trees. I just go over the outline. And the bushes down there. To make the leaves inside, I'm using a technique called scribbling where I just scribble the entire portion. Without any proper shapes like proper line or proper curves, I just scribble the entire portion. If you would like to learn more about drawing trees, I suggest you go back to one of my previous classes where I teach you about drawing trees in more detail. I'll be teaching you right from the basic, you know, so that you can master the skill of drawing trees. So if you are interested, you can always go back and check out my previous class. I do some scribbling on the bushes, as well. I use the same pen. I just scribble all over the bushes. Here we go. We are done with our house. It is more beautiful. It is more realistic or the patterns are lifting up the drawing. In the next lesson, we will do one final project for this class. 10. Let's draw a Shop-Part 1: I'm going to sketch a shop now. It can be a grocery store or a supermarket. But the thing is, I'm just going to draw a drill big. In my previous sketches, I started from the bottom, and I moved towards the top. But for this drawing, I'm starting from the top and moving downwards. So I start with the roof. It's going to be a two storey building, so I'm doing the top floor. I make the frame for the top floor. Since we are using a pencil, we can always make changes. Then I draw a double line in between the two floors. I'm going to make a big balcony on the top floor, so I'm drawing a big rectangle. This rectangle is for the windows. So I'm planning to make three windows, three large windows. I'm just making three sections on that one large window. I'm connecting all the three windows. And I make the balcony. For that, I draw a straight line. And I divide it into many sections. With this, a top floor is done. Let's do the ground floor. So I'm drawing two slanting lines on the sides and two horizontal lines for the sunshade. You can always go back into some adjustments if needed. I'm giving some zigzag to the bottom line. I'm dividing the sunshade using lines. As you draw the lines on the right side of the sunshade, the lines are slanting towards the right. And as you move towards the center, the lines are more straight. And as you move towards the left, the lines are slanting towards the left. Extend the lines downwards. I'm drawing a couple of lines for the frame of the building. I'm making a step at the bottom. A then at last, I make the ground. Now let's do the doors and the windows. I'm going to make this door real simple, just a normal rectangle with some sections on it, making a double line. And I'm making a few sections on the door. I'm making a double line again. Now I do the windows. Again, I make a small rectangle for the windows. I do double lines. I'm making a lot of sections on the windows using horizontal and vertical lines. I'm going to make another window towards the other side of the building. This window is similar to the previous one we've drawn before. With this, we're done with the basic sketch of the building. Let's do some external elements as well. I'm planning to add a street light and a couple of trees to this drawing. For the street light, I first draw a couple of straight lines and some designs on either side of it with a big hue on either side, and big bulb on either side. I want to make wider the bottom part of the street light. I'm going to put a small tree over here, a small pine tree. I just draw the basic sketch, the basic outline, and a big tree on the other side. With this, our outline is done. I'm going to pen this using my medium sized drawing pen of size 0.4. In the next lesson, we will add some patterns and some beautiful shading to our drawing. 11. Let's Draw a Shop- Part 2: Let's do some shading and add some patterns on our sketch. I'm using a larger sized pen to highlight the balcony rails. I'm using a double line so that it is thick enough. Oh, so I'm adding a double line to the sunshade. I I'm using a brush pen to fill the sunshade with black colour. On the lower part also, I'm filling with black colour. I'm going to fill the sunshade alternatively with black and white colors. The sunshade is now completed. Let's do the roof. Using my scale and 0.8 drawing pen, I'm drawing lines all over the roof. So these lines, they are going to change their direction according to the direction of the roof. If the roof is towards the right, the line is towards the right. On the left side of the roof, the lines are towards the left and on the center, the lines are straight. To make the roof look more realistic, what I'm going to do is I'm going to add some patterns on the roof. I start by drawing a curve at the bottom, and I fill the curve entirely with black color. Above that, I'm going to add more curves all over the room. As you move towards the top, these curves are very close to each other. Let's try one more time. I first draw a curve, and I fill the curve entirely with black color. Above that, I'm completely covering the entire row with more curves. At the start, the space between these curves are more, and as you move towards the top, the space is less. It is very tightly packed on the top. Follow the same pattern for the entire roof. Drawing is such a deep passion for me. When I draw, I get relieved of my personal stress, and it's completely meditative process. It just takes me to another world, a completely new meditative world. Let's do the street light. I first start with the outline. Using a brush pen, I'm filling the lower rectangular section black color. I'm removing the outline using an eraser so that it's comfortable for me when I do the highlights and the shading. I draw some straight lines on the bottom part of the house. These patterns, they are completely up to you. You can try different kinds of patterns. You know, you can draw some curves. You can draw some, you know, zigzag lines, and you can just try your own drawing skills on these houses. A Let's give some shading on the windows. I'm using a technique called hatching and cross hatching to do the shading. I'm just filling the windows with pad lines of almost same size. Doing the same for all the three windows. This is just to indicate the shadows which falls on the windows. I'm using the same cross for the lower two windows also. I'm just drawing these panel straight lines all over the windows. I'm filling the top section below the roof with some straight lines. This is just to cover the empty space. So I'm just filling with straight lines. I'm drawing some horizontal lines on the street light also. Giving some very light shading on the bulb. Just very minimal. I'm making it very minimal. Just fill all the empty space, all the white areas with some patterns. That's all. Giving some shading on the door also. I'm drawing a knob for the door and some very minimal shading on the door. In order to add some shading to any sketch, you should first observe it. In general, there's going to be a lot of shadows below the roof. So I'm going to add some shadows below the roof. I'm just drawing some straight line which falls downwards. You don't have to strain your hands. You can always change the position of your paper whenever it is needed. Because while drawing straight lines and while drawing curves, certain angle will be more convenient than the other. A I'm doing some highlights using a bigger sized pen. I'm using the same technique to add some shading to the lower part of the sunshade. With this, our building is now completed. As you can observe, we have a lot of patterns, we have a lot of highlights, and the entire building looks elevated using very simple patterns and very simple sketch. In the next lesson, we will talk about the class project and wind up the class. 12. Class Project: We have now come to the end of the class. I hope this class was useful for you. I hope you now have the basic idea of drawing buildings, and I hope you're confident enough to take your pen and start to draw. If you are drawing along with me, I encourage you to share your projects. It might not be very big, no matter how small your drawing is, I encourage you to share your projects on the project section below. So your class project is to sketch your own building. It might be a shop, it might be a grocery store, or it might be a cafe or it might be a simple house. You can add some variations to the different elements of the building like windows and doors. You can add some patterns to the doors. Instead of drawing the windows to be closed, you can draw as if the windows are open. You can also try different external elements like the elements outside the building. Like you can include a flower pot on the balcony and on the front of the house, or you can also add a street light, and you can add some trees, bushes, different fences, so and so. If you have any doubts in any part of the class, I encourage you to ask me. I will get back to you as soon as possible. And you can also try some of my other classes on floral illustration and architectural buildings. Please share your feedback for my class. It helps me create better classes in the future. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Have a nice day.