Photo: Sketch from Video on People Sketching

Continuing with day five of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. Today I a portrait, and I really wanted to go out and do some urban sketching, but many of my favourite cafes were closed today, so I had to settle for sketching from a video.

Day Five of my 365 Day Sketch Challenge

Drawing Earthsworld Challenge

I did the latest Drawing Earthsworld Challenge from Facebook, with an interesting facial expression. I didn’t get the nose right, but as I sketched directly in pen, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. It was another opportunity to do some negative ink sketching on the mouth to depict the teeth.

Sketching People from a Video

In lieu of sketching from life, I did the next best thing and sketched from a video. Urban Sketcher Taria Dawson is originally from the UK but now lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. She publishes the Urban Sketching World website and the People Sketching website. People Sketching is a membership site which is a collection of short videos playing on a loop to simulate urban sketching people. I haven’t been on there for a while, but I needed some urban sketching practice, and this is the next best thing to sketching from life, and better practice than sketching from a static photo.

I wanted to do a group scene, so chose one with a view of people from the back watching an event. I only sketched the watchers, not the people they were watching. They were moving around a little, but not too much, and because it was a short video on a loop, you don’t have to wait long for the subjects to return to a position you’ve already started capturing in your sketch.

I’m still figuring out how my blues work together to create interesting and loose skies, and this sketch was also a good opportunity to practice a loose watercolour sky.

Keeping a Sketching Tracker

Recently, prior to starting this #365 sketching challenge, I was keeping a tracker of the type of sketching I was doing. I felt like I was lacking focus, and had got a little lost and sidetracked on buildings and boats during October and November.

I wanted to streamline my daily activities, and become more intentional about the tutorials and sketching activities I spent my time on.

This tracker helped get me focused. The main benefit was creating a list of the tutorials and online events I was interested in, so that I could make sure my sketching activities were supporting the goals I recently set myself.

I only kept this daily tracker for three weeks, and it’s been replaced by my regular blog posts for this #365 day art challenge. But it was a beneficial exercise to focus my intentions, and I am still referencing the list of tutorials and online learning I want to focus on.

If your artistic endeavours are feeling scattered and unfocused, a daily activity tracker is worth investigating. I found it really useful, and maybe you will too.