Speed Sketching to Music

Day Twenty-Six of Sketching People

Continuing with day Twenty-Six of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. Today I’ve been focused on working through the Liz Steel watercolour class, and playing around with watercolour washes, so when it came to sketching people, I went in a different direction for a bit of variety.

Pencils4Tea Speed Sketching Event

I didn’t prep for today’s session and ended up sketching directly onto the paper in my speed sketching sketchbook. It’s not very thick, so I have to be careful about adding watercolour washes. So I opted for a Uniball Eye fine pen (which does bleed through a little) and some coloured pencils and watercolour pencils.

I started off with three colours (turquoise for eyes, orange for lips, and brown for hair), but then added a couple more (burgundy for lips because the orange was too distracting, and a pale pink – but didn’t use it much).

I actually enjoyed using this limited colour palette for these speed portraits, because it creates a cohesiveness to them. It’s good to mix up my approach for these sketches, to keep them fresh, and pushing the boundaries of how I’m used to working.

One of the biggest struggles in December was sketching noses, but they’re definitely getting better. Still wish I could reduce the nose lines down to even more minimal lines.

Sketching Hands

In December, Dylan Sara, had a month of focusing on sketching hands, and he used hands as a theme in his Drawing with Dylan events during the month, so now when people pose with their hands near their face, it isn’t daunting anymore. I tend to draw them a little bigger, or the fingers a little longer than reality, but I don’t really mind that they’re not perfect. My hands just have a bit more personality!

The best hands I ever sketched, were on my Bob Marley charcoal sketch.

Speed Sketching Sketchbook

I’m glad I’ve assigned a specific sketchbook for all of my speed sketching activities. It’s going to be good to look back on these pages in the months ahead, and see how my style is changing or improving.

For information about Live Portrait Sketching events, check out this listing here. There’s multiple opportunities each week to engage in some portrait speed sketching.