How to Draw Havana Art

What You'll Need

• •Watercolor paper or mixed-media paper, plus graphite, a kneaded eraser, and a ruler for planning architecture
• •Gouache or acrylic paint in turquoise, coral, ochre, cream, ultramarine, deep violet, and a dark neutral
• •Small round brushes, a flat brush, an old dry brush, and a sponge or rag for creating chipped and weathered surfaces
• •Colored pencils, oil pastels, or ink pens for outlining, ironwork, cracks, and decorative geometry
• •A drawing tablet with pressure-sensitive stylus and software such as Procreate, Krita, Photoshop, or Clip Studio Paint
• •Reference photos of colonial facades, balconies, tropical streets, iron gates, plants, and Caribbean sunlight, used for observation rather than direct copying

Step by Step

1. 1

   1. Choose a simple street-story and thumbnail it

   Select one main subject, such as a pastel facade with a balcony, a doorway beside a parked car, or two figures crossing a sunlit street. Make three to five small thumbnails using only rectangles, triangles, circles, and shadow masses. Place the brightest color near the focal area and reserve one quieter region so the composition can breathe. Decide on a low, eye-level, or slightly elevated viewpoint before starting the final piece.

2. 2

   2. Build the perspective with large architectural planes

   Lightly block the facade, street, roofline, balcony, and openings with straight construction lines. Use a simple one- or two-point perspective system, but allow minor irregularities so the building feels lived-in rather than mechanically perfect. Divide the wall into large planes of light and shade before adding windows or decoration. Check that balconies, doors, and pavement guide the eye toward the focal point instead of competing with it.

3. 3

   3. Establish the pastel-and-tropical color structure

   Choose a limited palette of four to seven dominant colors, such as faded mint, dusty pink, warm cream, turquoise, coral, ochre, and deep blue-violet. Place warm light colors on sun-facing planes and cooler, darker colors under balconies, inside doorways, and along street edges. Keep saturation highest around the focal subject and slightly mute distant or secondary areas. Mix a small amount of a complementary color into shadows so they feel rich rather than flat black.

4. 4

   4. Create weathered colonial surfaces

   Lay in the wall color as an uneven field rather than a perfectly smooth coat. When it is dry, scumble a lighter or darker tone across it with a nearly dry brush, then add irregular patches, hairline cracks, exposed underlayers, and softened edges with a sponge or rag. Make damage follow the construction: paint tends to wear around corners, sills, drain paths, and hand-height areas. Keep some broad clean passages so the texture reads as intentional and does not become visual noise.

5. 5

   5. Simplify figures and vehicles into graphic forms

   Construct people from angled blocks, tapered cylinders, and overlapping planes instead of outlining every anatomical detail. Turn shoulders, hips, faces, and clothing slightly in different directions to create a cubist-influenced rhythm while preserving a readable gesture. Use two or three color families per figure and place a sharp shadow under the body to anchor it to the pavement. Treat a car, bicycle, or plant similarly: reduce it to recognizable masses, then add only a few decisive accents.

6. 6

   6. Design balconies and wrought-iron ornament

   Sketch railings as repeated verticals, arches, diamonds, spirals, or leaf-like curls, keeping the pattern consistent with the balcony perspective. Paint or draw the iron in a dark blue, brown, or near-black rather than a featureless pure black. Vary line thickness and let sunlight break across some bars so the ornament casts a visible shadow. Simplify distant ironwork into grouped marks, reserving detailed loops for the area closest to the focal point.

7. 7

   7. Add folk-inspired geometry and tropical accents

   Introduce small geometric motifs such as stepped borders, triangles, circles, checker bands, or star-like marks on shutters, tiles, clothing, signs, or painted walls. Use these motifs as accents that repeat two or three colors already present in the composition. Add palms, broad leaves, flowers, or fruit as graphic silhouettes with a few internal veins rather than botanical studies. Keep the patterns subordinate to the main architecture and figures by reducing their contrast in secondary areas.

8. 8

   8. Unify the light, edges, and final texture

   Choose a clear Caribbean light direction and strengthen the cast shadows beneath eaves, balconies, figures, and vehicles. Sharpen a few focal edges while softening or breaking edges farther away, especially where walls meet the bright sky. Add a final layer of thin color, dry-brush marks, or transparent glaze to connect separate objects and create a sun-faded, timeworn surface. Step back, compare the value pattern in grayscale, and remove any detail that distracts from the main street-story.

Going Digital

In digital painting software, organize the piece into groups for construction, base colors, shadows, texture, ornament, and figures. Use a textured opaque brush for walls, a low-opacity sponge or chalk brush for worn paint, and a hard-edged brush for architecture and graphic figures. Create a clipping mask or alpha-lock layer for cracks and scuffs so they stay inside the wall planes, and use a multiply layer for cool shadows plus a soft warm layer for reflected sunlight. Add a subtle paper, canvas, or plaster texture near the end, but vary its opacity and scale so it does not look like a uniform filter.

Common Mistakes

FAQ