Urban Sketch at Tavira Plaza
Day Forty-Six of Sketching People
Continuing with day 46 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. After doing some urban sketching of people at the Tavira Plaza Mall, I attended the Pencil4Tea speed sketching event.
Urban Sketching People at Tavira Plaza
I did a couple of sketches on one of the new cafés that have popped up at the plaza. Both scenes were manufactured compilations.
1st Urban Sketch: 3 Guys at a table
I wanted to practice the gesture sketching tips I encountered in the Marc Tarot Holmes Sketching People in Motion tutorial, and had taken a long a pencil to do the initial gesture sketches. Just as well I did, because no sooner had I sketched the trio and was about to take a photo, and the big guy in the centre of the scene who I wanted to be the focal point, got up and left.
But I’d captured enough information on the page, to be able to complete all of them in loose ink lines. They looked a little lost in space, and the shops in the background weren’t very interesting to sketch.
So I waited until customers started lining up at the counter to order their drinks and food, and then I added them to the scene. Technically this is a manufactured scene, because the people lining up were off to the left, and not behind these guys. But I wanted to combine these two different groups into once scene to capture my version of reality.
The central character (my focal point) had a bright red coat on, and I wanted to maintain that, but I bent reality a bit by giving his two friends the same colour green coat, to complement the red. And so that the other figures in the scene didn’t compete, or make the sketch look too busy, I just used my Tombow brush pens to create a tonal background for this trio to sit in front of.
All these guys had the same NY baseball cap on, which is what inspired me to sketch the scene. Although it’s not obvious, I think there’s enough information to give that impression of matching hats.
2nd Urban Sketch: People at the Cafe
Another table of people where one person was wearing a red coat. So of course that lady had to be my focal point. I wanted her to stand out, so used muted tones for all the other figures. Although I should probably have made the man with his daft hairstyle the focal point!! At first glance I thought he had a joke fake wig on like, but it was his actual hair.
There was a few areas of foliage behind a couple of the figures, but I expanded it to create a continuous mid-ground layer that gave the impression they were secluded.
I’m not sure that this foliage works well as a mid-ground layer. It looks a bit busy, and the jury is still out. One minute I like it, and then when I look at it again, I’m just not sure. But, I do like how I depicted the background as an impression of a shop window with minimal details, and pale tonal shading. That works, and doesn’t complete with the rest of the scene.
Pencil Sketching Gesture Drawing
I quite liked doing the pencil sketching gesture drawings first. It definitely worked for the scenario where my main figure walked out of the first scene. I’m going to keep with it for the month of February, and then make a decision of whether gestural pencil sketches are going to be a key part of my approach to sketching, or whether it’s going to be something I just use occasionally.
Pencils4Tea Speed Sketching Event
This is one of the weekly speed sketching events on zoom, where each pose is the length of a song track. I used a new pen for this portrait session tonight, which I bought earlier today. It’s a Staedtler Triplus Fineliner. I figured it was soluble ink, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would have such a heavy bleed. But it does glide very smoothly across the paper, so I thought I’d give it a go anyway.
Once I found out this pen has a heavy bleed, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to control the results, so I just went with a messy look tonight. In the portrait example below, you can see that the bleed has a lovely colour variation of greys, blues, and purples. This sketch has my pencil gesture sketch still visible – all part of the messy vibe I was embracing.
I found out that Mark, who posed tonight, hosts a weekly speed sketching event each Wednesday on zoom, so I’ve added his event to the Live Portrait Sketching Roundup listing.
