Design a cityscape using acrylics

How to paint your favourite city scene on canvas

We’d like to show you how even urban city art can be portrayed on canvas in the most gorgeous colours. The edding range of acrylic markers offers the ideal assortment of colours for this type of project, helping you create impressive works of art in up to 26 colours that look particularly good on canvas and paper. These acrylic markers are really convenient to use, with the added bonus that they're handy to take with you wherever you go, so you can easily recreate your favourite images – whether in a park, at the zoo or in a city centre. This motif of Hamburg City Hall is available on our website for you to download. Should you decide on a different motif, we recommend you create a template beforehand as this makes it so much easier to transfer to canvas. If you have photos of your own that you’d like to turn into templates, feel free to use our template generator.

Category: How to paint with acrylics
Products: Acrylic range
Materials: Canvas
Difficulty: A bit more challenging
Downloads: Images (ZIP)

Step-by-step

Step 1

To design your city motif, you'll need the edding acrylic marker set containing five broad-nibbed markers in five assorted colours. You can see everything you need at a glance in our photo. You can, of course, choose one of the many other colours in the edding 5000 broad acrylic marker range.

Step 2

Print out the two-page template and stick the two sections together with tape.

Step 3

Place the motif behind the canvas.

Step 4

Place a light source behind both the canvas and the template, then trace over the template using a pencil. Before you start painting, activate the marker as follows: shake the marker with the cap on until you can hear the mixing balls rattle inside, then carefully pump the nib up and down until ink appears in the nib. It's important to hold the marker at a slight angle as you pump so you don’t damage the delicate chisel nib. Test the marker first on a piece of scrap paper.

Step 5

To begin, paint the rounded arches and one section of the city hall in traffic yellow. Next, paint the extra touches and further sections of the building using the acrylic marker in sunny yellow. To ensure you don't accidentally mix your colours, you should let one colour dry before continuing with the next.

Step 6

Using the acrylic marker in opulent turquoise, colour in the water and the tops of the towers.

Step 7

Once all the areas are dry, continue by selecting telemagenta as your colour and using it to complete the area in front of the water, elements of the street lamps and the outer surfaces of the arches.

Step 8

Now grab the acrylic marker in gentian blue and add various highlights. Finally, leave everything to dry.

Step 9

Extra tip: these handy acrylic pens can be used anywhere, which means you can paint wherever and however you wish. Simply pop your markers and canvas in a bag and head off to a city centre, say, where you can draw your cityscape straight from the original.