Drawing Earthsworld Challenge
Day Thirty-Eight of Sketching People
Continuing with day 38 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. I managed a quick portrait today, and attended Dylan’s speed sketching portrait session on zoom. But it was a busy day and I wasn’t really feeling it. But I wanted to keep up with my commitment to sketch people every day.
Sketching with Dylan
Tuesday is the live 2 hour zoom speed sketching event, Drawing with Dylan. I used a grid layout for last week’s session, but I used a different layout for this week’s session. I wanted to create one sheet for the 30 second to 2 minute poses (the one pose missing from this set of 15, is when it was my turn to pose)
Shorter Poses
Longer Poses
For my second sheet I made the sections a lot smaller than I used last week. While I like the idea of the small spaces for the short poses. I really don’t like being that restricted for the longer sketches to this reduced size.
I kept having time left during the 4 and 6 minute portrait sketches, because my sketches were so small. So I think at future events I’m going to give myself more leeway on what size these bigger sketches can be.
I wasn’t really feeling this session, there’s only a couple of poses I was happy with. I thought a coloured background behind each portrait using a couple of watercolour pencils. I thought that might improve these portrait sketches, but it didn’t really work!
Sketching Session Materials
I started this sketching session with my Noodler’s Flex Nib pen, I didn’t think it was working to try to achieve line variety within such a small area, so I switched to my usual fineliner 0.05. I’ve been trying to get away from my reliance on this pen, but it’s so easy to sketch with. But I’m experimenting with the Noodler’s and Sailor Fude so I can get more line variety.
Drawing Earthsworld Challenge
I did this old man’s portrait from the Drawing Earthsworld Challenge from Facebook.
Initially I left these portrait sketch with a white background, but I’ve realised that when I’m not happy with my version of the portrait, I tend to revert to painting the background!
The source photo had a busy background, but there was a slim panel of this golden yellow colours, so I picked that out and created this dynamic background, which is actually my favourite part of this portrait.
Portrait Background
The background is a mixture of Quin Gold and Quin Rose.
I created two puddles of each colour in my palette, and let them merge in the middle.
This is a technique I’ve seen Oliver Hoeller and Matty Burnham use in recent tutorials I’ve watched. Once you have your puddles, you just alternate where you put your brush to pick up a single or merged colour. Then let the brush strokes merge the watercolour on your paper.
For added interest, make sure to leave some lighter and white areas. I used some dry kitchen roll to pull off some of the colour to create these lighter areas, which helps to add texture to the overall look of the background. Much more interesting than a flat wash I think.
