Gouache and go: Faster Urban Sketching with Murray Dewhurst

International Urban Sketching Week 2025

#UskWeek2025 #urbansketchers

Top 3 Sketching Tips from Murray Dewhurst

1. Start with Shadows
   Begin your sketch by painting in the shadows with diluted neutral gouache. This builds strong value structure and depth from the start—no need to pencil things in first.
2. Hold Your Sketchbook at Eye Level
   Sketching with your book held beside the scene (not on your lap) makes it easier to judge shapes and values accurately, improving proportions and perspective.
3. Trust the Process—no pencil required
   Resist the urge to reach for your pen. Let values and colour do the defining work. It’s faster, more expressive, and often leads to surprisingly complete sketches.

Sketching with Murray Dewhurst: Shadows, Gouache, and the Joy of Process

We kicked off International Urban Sketchers Week (1–7 May) with something special—an afternoon with Murray Dewhurst, a founding member of Urban Sketchers Auckland and a truly inspiring artist. Nearly 20 of us gathered in Stable Lane, Eden Terrace, drawn by Murray’s relaxed “Values Workshop” and the chance to sketch alongside him.

Eden Terrace is a sketcher’s dream and Stable Lane in particular is a favourite of Murray’s, especially for the backs of old shops and repurposed stables—perfect for exploring shape, light, and depth.

Murray has developed a brilliant, efficient technique over time, especially helpful for those of us juggling kids, jobs and finding time to  mow lawns! Instead of starting with pencil or pen, he picks up a water brush with diluted gouache from his palette and begins with shadows. Just shadows. He showed us how forgiving gouache can be: rubbing marks with his fingers, scrubbing them with a brush of water to remove marks, paining over previous strokes to obliterate them.

Layering a neutral tint, he builds depth by darking the intensity of the value of his trokes before even touching colour. He noticed, in fact, that just using this technique you can end up with a wonderful painting and just call it a day. But once that foundation of neutral layers of values is in place, colour can be added—especially Murray’s signature vivid sky blue, applied with his dedicated ‘blue’ water brush only used for blue to avoid muddy mixes (I assume, I didn’t actually ask him).

Murray holds his sketchbook up at eye level, right beside the scene he is drawing. He says it makes comparing shapes and values easier. “It’s almost like tracing the scene,” he said. It’s a subtle change, but it really helped me see differently and it really did help.

I’ll admit, it was hard to stick with the process—my pen hand was itching! But I stayed with the brush, layering tone after tone, then some colour. When I got home, I finally saw what Murray had been telling me: I had created depth, without needing any ink lines at all.

We worked on some kind of tinted paper—Murray had a brown craft-paper sketchbook, others used grey paper, and I brought along a cracker box and used the cardboard inside which was a light browny-grey colour. It was a very forgiving surface and it worked a treat! As a bonus many of us ended up with leaf litter in our paint boxes too, thanks to the cool autumn breeze.

This was my first time using gouache, and I loved how it reactivates like watercolour (make sure you get the non-acrylic kind). I used my round waterbrush a lot, and after borrowing Murray’s square-tipped blue-only brush, I definitely want one of those. It felt like carving sky into the scene and I really admired my brushwok.

Best of all, I finished a sketch on location—finished! That almost never happens for me. This method is faster, loosened me up a lot, and created far more energy in line and colour than I normally see in my work. I’ll be squeezing some gouache into a spare palette and taking this approach out again soon.

Key takeaway for me is to trust the process when trying new things. You might just surprise yourself!

Michelle Park is a member of Urban Sketchers Auckland. This post reflects her personal experiences from Murray Dewhurst’s Values Workshop as part of the Urban Sketchers International Week hosted by Urban Sketchers Auckland in April 2025

Ponsonby Central

 We visited one of Auckland's favourite foodiedestinations - Ponsonby Central.

The cool breeze and rain didn't bother us, and there was lots to sketch at every turn... plus a nice finish with beverages and Turkish coffee afterwards!

Let's Sketch Auckland

I get a kick out of seeing the bemused expressions on peoples faces as they enter a cafe with a big group sketching each other in a cafe.

 

I finally made it to a 'Let's Sketch' having missed New Plymouth 2017 and Wellington in 2018. Pretty hard to miss this one when it's just down the road eh.

The weekend saw dozens of sketchers join us in Auckland for 2 days of sketching. They came from all over with a good mix of our usuals, a couple of new faces, Anne, Andrew, Dave and Gerrard from Wellington, Tina from Whangarei, a sketcher from Singapore and Hosannah from Guangzhou.

I really enjoyed hanging out with everyone and seeing them all enjoying themselves, and now I'm looking forward to next year — wherever that may be.

Save the date!

Let's Sketch Auckland

March 22-23-24

Following on from New Plymouth in 2017 and Wellington 2018, Urban Sketchers Auckland announce a weekend of sketching.

We will kick the weekend off with a drink and draw on Friday evening, a chance for those who have arrived in Auckland early to catch up. We'll follow-up soon with a venue to be confirmed.

On Saturday morning we'll meet under Selwyn Muru's 'Waharoa' sculpture in Aotea Square at 9am where we'll begin the days sketchcrawl. A relaxed morning of sketching will take us through some of central Auckland's most sketchable places.

We'll make our way from Aotea Square up to the Auckland Art Gallery on Kitchener street, into Albert Park and eventually down to Takutai Square in Britomart for lunch. After lunch we'll make our way from Queens Wharf to the Viaduct, Wynyard Quarter finishing in Silo Park.

On Sunday we celebrate Auckland's place as South Pacific capital at the Pasifika Festival. Pasifika is a sketchers delight with pan Pacifc performance stages, arts and crafts on show and of course delicious food.

Stay posted with details and times to be confirmed.

Tasty sketch destination for Auckland sketchers

Urban Sketchers Auckland met at Mercury Plaza recently for the monthly Urban Sketchers meet. Meeting inside a warm food hall was an excellent choice given the storm raging outside.

After nailing some spicy Korean beef I started drawing with my Noodlers fountain pen, but the ink almost immediately ran out — should have checked that first eh! Thankfully Esther lent me her Parka pen and I soon got into the groove of drawing with it. My Noodlers pen is designed to flex and give a wide variation in line width but I didn't want to damage Esthers nice writing pen so I sketched lighter and sketchier than usual.

The ink in the pen was Parker writing ink and it's water soluble, so rather than apply watercolour over the linework as I would normally do, I used a wet water brush to activate the ink and create tone —  unpredictable but a lot of fun.

Auckland Urban Sketchers meets the last Saturday afternoon of every month and you're welcome to join us. Check the Facebook page for the next venue and times.

High St, Auckland

High Street, Auckland, drawn while sitting in the new renovated Freyberg Place, during the Febuary session of Auckland Urban Sketchers.

Beer, bridges, fish & ships at Northcote Point

But not all in that order — the beer and chips came later at the Northcote Tavern — and the fish didn't come at all because Louis didn't catch any. A good turn-out for our sketch meet though, thanks to the great weather and Eric's excellent choice of Northcote Point — a great spot with views under the Harbour Bridge to the city. A couple of classic yachts came past too, Arcturus and the Ted Ashby, to add a bit of colour...

If you're ever in Auckland on the last Saturday of the month and want to come along, check out the Facebook page here for details.