2 minute speed sketch of Klaus
Day Forty-Four of Sketching People
Continuing with day 44 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. I attended Dylan’s speed sketching portrait session on zoom, and while I was waiting I did a set of blind contour self portraits.
Speed Sketching with Dylan
Tuesday is the live 2 hour zoom speed sketching event, Drawing with Dylan. I used a smaller grid layout for the 30 second to 2 minute poses, and larger grid and individual pieces for the 4 and 6 minute poses.
Shorter Poses
For these shorter poses I used a Pilot G-Tec C4 needlepoint pen with soluble ink. I decided to try sketching with this pen and then using a paintbrush with just water to create bleed. It’s difficult to control the amount of bleed, and I messed a few of the faces up. So some of them have no areas of bleed except for the hair.
My favourite short pose sketch was of Klaus. He doesn’t really have these chubby cheeks, but I like how this sketch ebbs toward caricature, and how it’s not an accurate likeness, but that I’ve captured the essence of him. I’ve sketched him a few times now, and he’s one of my favourite models to speed sketch.
Longer Poses
For these longer 4 and 6 minutes poses I switched to my waterproof Staedtler pigment Liner 0.05 (good old faithful), and added tone with my light grey Tombow pens.
I had planned to switch to a fude pen for this session, but I’d just had a big clean up on my fountain pens to stop them from jamming, and none of my fude pens had any ink in them. So that’ll be my plan for next time.
Blind Contour Self-Portraits
While I was waiting for the zoom to begin, I grabbed a set of small pieces of watercolour paper, and did a series of blind contour self-portrait – using the reflection of my face I could see on the computer screen.
The first one came out the most anatomically correct, but I actually prefer the wonkier ones better. These are so quick to do, and so much fun. No worries about getting something to look good. It’s really just an exercise to train your hand and eye coordination. But the results are always pleasing, no matter what it looks like.
Once I’d sketched the ink lines. I added some colour using my Tombow and Graph’O water based marker pens. I don’t use these much anymore (except for my greys for tonal shading), and the series of colours I have are vibrant and really playful. I want to play around with these some more, and see if I should take these to the next USk Symposium in Toulouse as part of my urban sketching kit.
