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It only takes a few ingredients to produce hand drawn illustrations: a drawing utensil, a surface, and of course time. Whatever one’s preferred medium, the barriers to entry for drawing are very low, meaning just about anyone with the desire to create original work can do so. That said, with advancements in architectural software technology, detailed hand drawings and sketches have become something of a rarity within the field of architecture.

However, if you look in the right places, you can find ingenious artists who create powerful drawings on a daily basis. Their drawings tell visual stories about buildings and cities that make them amazing inspiration for the One Drawing Challenge, Architizer’s big summer ideas competition. Register today and submit a drawing yourself for a chance to win $2,500:

Register for the One Drawing Challenge

While both analog and digital drawings are eligible for the competition, today’s inspiration comes in the form of hand-crafted illustration. As it becomes less present within professional practice, hand drawings are increasingly valued for their more artistic qualities, and, as a result, artists can inject greater imaginative and fantastical elements to their work.

Below is an assemblage of some of the most prominent artists on Instagram whose hand drawn work has distinct architectural qualities. Let this group of talented creatives and their work inspire you as you develop your drawings for this year’s One Drawing Challenge competition:

Dan Hogman

San Francisco-based architect, photographer and artist, Dan Hogman, boasts an immense collection of ink sketches depicting buildings and streetscapes. For many of his illustrations he only spends 15-20 minutes, in which he focuses more on essential properties, such as light and shadow, to achieve greater impacts. Hogman mainly sketches with just one pen, and in his view this simpler approach to presenting ideas leaves greater lasting impressions. It actually mirrors the way he presented his work while in architecture graduate school. Hogman also features process videos on his Instagram offering glimpses into his entire sketching process.

Jeff Murray

UK-based artist, Jeff Murray, creates incredibly intricate works inspired by exploration and travel all with a pen and canvas. After graduating in 2007 with a BA in Graphic Design, Murray traveled throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, embracing their cultures and landscapes. These experiences fueled the inspiration behind his artworks depicting vast cityscapes from across the world, which merge time periods and are fashioned in very whimsical and romantic forms and perspectives. His most recent work is a whopping illustration of a globed New York City so detailed it seems to account for every street and building within The Big Apple.

Emi Nakajima

Self-described “dream traveler”, Emi Nakajima, ensures that no detail is overlooked within her finely crafted illustrations. With the use of a pen she recreates some of the most iconic structures in the world from the Sagrada Família in Spain to Wat Rong Khun in Thailand. Each piece conveys Nakajima’s skill of reproducing an array of architectural elements. She experiments with varying scales and mediums, which comes together to develop a portfolio full of beautiful renderings.

Minty Sainsbury

The work of Scotland-based artist, Minty Sainsbury, creates uniquely personal experiences within the urban settings she illustrates. Her work is primarily comprised of meticulously drawn buildings that are sheathed by the silhouettes of other structures. The perspectives of the pieces are at a human scale, which works to envelop viewers within her rendered city streets. This coupled with the photorealistic quality of the environments produces such beautiful experiences on Sainsbury’s canvases.

Vasco Mourão

With a simple black pen at his disposal, Vasco Mourão draws urban landscapes and detailed architectural assemblages. The surfaces he uses span paper, wood, brass, stone and wall, which often take unique shapes and forms. Mourão’s work is incredibly imaginative providing fascinating journeys both within and outside his illustrations.

Jae Cheol Park

It’s easy to get lost in the breathtaking work of Jae Cheol Park or “Paperblue”. He creates worlds, both old and new ranging from the real to the imaginary, which possess a very dreamlike and fantastical allure. Park’s work depicts environments at varying scales with an underlying architectural draft style. This pairing brings greater meaning to his structures as their vivid surroundings embed a very felt narrative and character.

Giuliana Flavia Cangelosi

The portfolio of Giuliana Flavia Cangelosi ranges from simple sketches to precise designs wholly inspired by Italy. Collections of historic buildings and monuments found across the country are featured embellished with a very expressive character. Her pen and architectural drafting techniques allow for remarkably thorough renderings of Italy’s built environment.

Olivia Kemp

British artist, Olivia Kemp, injects her own mythical and illusory twist to her detailed, large-scale pen illustrations of real world environments. Her work simultaneously recreates landscapes and remodels them. They’re inspired by her travels and her imaginative interpretations of these places. It’s clear that the natural environment plays a poignant role in her work as it is often greatly infused within the built environments she depicts. From a minute cacti to a towering castle, Kemp accounts for every single detail creating a very layered and textured aesthetic.

Thomas Dartigues

The work by Paris-based artist, Thomas Dartigues, is probably larger than you. His illustrations of different cityscapes around the world are produced at massive scales taking up large sheets of paper and walls. A former street artist, Dartigues depicts some of the world’s most famous landmarks and often combines elements from different regions within singular environments. One of his most notable projects is his incorporation of the iconic 574 New Balance sneaker into the cityscape of Boston, which was commissioned by the sports fashion brand.

Adelina Gareeva

Architecture student, Adelina Gareeva, uses pencil to produce her detailed freehand architectural sketches. Her work shifts from imagined architectural sketches to recreations of famous monuments. Her conceptual work is clad with irregular shapes and curves, yet retains a very clear design-oriented ethic. Gareeva’s journey as a burgeoning architect and artist is showcased on her Instagram that also features her digital renderings and physical models.

Now show us what you can do: Register for the One Drawing Challenge and submit your best drawings for a chance to win $2,500 and more amazing prizes:

Register for the One Drawing Challenge