My homage to one of Tiago's sketches
People Sketching using Line, Colour, and Contrast
I’m always intrigued by artists who use loose lines confidently, and Portuguese urban sketcher Tiago Cruz exude that confidence. He sketches a lot of different subjects and doesn’t shy away from sketching people. I discovered him on Instagram, and looked through his people sketches to see what it was about his style of sketching I found inspiring.
I figured the best way was to analyse his people sketches, was to look at a cross-section of Instagram posts to see what it was about each sketch that appeals to me, and identify:
- how he uses uses a hierarchy of line, colour, and contrast
- how he establishes a focal point
- how he creates a strong visual pathway to lead the viewer
Simple Line Drawing Without Colour
When time is of the essence or you just fancy doing quick sketches, this simple line drawing approach is a good option. Continuous Lines, or even blind contour lines are a great way to train your hand to draw what your eye sees. The only way to get better at sketching people, is to sketch a lot of them, and they don’t all have to be detailed portraits or complex sketches. As we can see from this Instagram post, with a few lines Tiago has captured a sense of place, and captured a moment perfectly.
Monochromatic Sketch with Spot Colour
Here’s two different ways that Tiago has used spot colour in his people sketches.
Example One
This is another example of using simple line, but this time using spot colour to add a focal point. Initially, I thought this was just another example of using a spot colour on a monochromatic sketch to create the focal point and attract the eye first. But what’s clever about this sketch is that your eye is automatically drawn to the area of highest contrast – the white page and mass of black hair. And then, the splash of colour at the bottom of the page draws your eye down. This is a valuable lesson in focal point hierarchy, and has helped to solidify the idea of the value of high contrast within a sketch to draw the eye.
Example Two
This is another clever use of spot colour. Out of animate subjects and inanimate objects, the obvious focus here is the line drawings of the people lying on the beach. But Tiago has use spot colour on four sun umbrellas. These automatically draw the eye, because of their colour and size, but then the L-shaped layout of this scene, encourages your eye to travel right, across the page. What’s helpful here, is also his use of white space, that works because there’s so much going on at the bottom of the page, anything at the top of the page would have been overwhelming or distracting.
Line Drawing, with Colour Background
Here are four examples of different ways to use colour in the background of a sketch to enhance the mood or give colour an important role to play in the sketch.
Example One
This first example uses spot colour for the dress, to create a relationship between the two figures, and the perspective is realistic (the head heights are on the same horizon line), so that solidifies the connection between the two sketches.
The larger portrait and the smaller full-figure sketch are tied together with use of a complimentary colour background. And the this use of colour helps to ground both figures, especially the woman at the back. It’s a suggestion that both figures have a means of support behind them (e.g. a wall or a pillow).
Example Two
There’s lots of elements in play in this sketch. There’s a striking orange background filling the whole page, but when you look closer, the woman is sitting on a silhouette of a paler orange chair. The chair recedes into the background and isn’t a distracting element in this sketch. The focal point is strongly on the figure of the women, accentuated by the oblong outline.
Example Three
This use of high contrast immediately draws your eyes to the faces of these people, and keeps your eye there as you scan that horizon line where background and foreground meet.
Example Four
This is another example of a full page background colour. But in this case Tiago uses a graduated wash, from orange to the cooler natural sienna. The initial focal point is the high contrast computer screen on the left, which is against the paler background. But then the bright orange areas helps to draw your eye to the right hand side of the page. This is an elegant example of creating to areas of interest for the eye to travel between. One using the background colour, and one using an object of high contrast.
As a people-sketcher who is delving into how to create an effective focal point, my first thought would have been to add the orange background behind the area of the computer screen, and then done a graduated wash off to both sides. This would have created a strong focal point, but there wouldn’t have been anything to draw your eye away from it to another part of the sketch, unless you created another area of interest in the figure on the right.
Silhouettes in an Urban Scene
In my sketches, it’s the people who are the focal point, and the buildings (if I include any) are secondary. But in this example of using line drawing silhouettes creates a cohesive view of both elements working together in a single scene. some are just line drawing, but the occasional person has a solid shape of hair, or piece of clothing.
This use of high contrast areas, helps to draw the eye further down the street and into the image. I feel as if I’m initially drawn to the two people on the right (both with black hair), and then almost at the same height as their head, are the bodies of people receding in size, some with solid areas of black clothing. The silhouettes of the people on the right (in white) are there and visible, but because the areas of contrast aren’t as high, they establish a presence, but don’t divert the eye.
Include Yourself in the Sketch
No matter how many times I’ve sketched people, I’ve never included my sketchbook, pen, and hand in the sketch. But I really like the look of this composition. I think it shifts the focus away from the subjects and objects being sketched, and back onto the sketcher. Even though the use of colour on the seats and the main figure, and the high contrast of the figure behind him draws your eye, there’s an intimacy at seeing this hand poised for action.
It makes the artist part of the scene and an integral part of establishing a sense of place. For me, this is an example of a secondary focal point, conveying a sense of emotional connection. Maybe because I’m an artist, and I’ve sketched on a lot of planes!
I’m a big fan of ink lines and spot colour, and Tiago’s minimalistic approach to people sketching incorporates both of these sketching techniques so effortlessly. He adept at using negative space to allow his sketches to breath, even when he’s using big blocks of colour in his sketches.
Just because you only sketch one topic – people. It doesn’t mean that every sketch has to look the same. Tiago shows that there are so many different ways of combining line, colour, and contrast, without losing that familiar look of your individual sketching style.
