Analogous urban sketch poem

Day One Hundred and Thirty-Four of Sketching People

Continuing with day 134 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour, more speed sketching this time with Pencils4tea, and an urban sketch at a cafe using analogous colour palette from my latest colour triad.

Speed Sketching with Pencils4Tea

Speed sketching session tonight hosted by Pencils4Tea, where every pose is the length of a music track. I prepped my small pieces of paper with some torn pages from a Portuguese book I found at the charity shop, and then drew on top of them. I started with my fude pen, but it didn’t work so well on this paper, so then I switched to a Uni-ball eye – those beauties write on any kind of paper, no problem. They’re a great backup pen. I always have one with me as a back-up.

When I first started doing these portraits I really didn’t like them, and wished I had some blank watercolour pieces to start sketching on. At first I used watercolour and then watercolour pencils, but both just soaked in and wouldn’t move around much. I switched to Inktense water-soluble pencils but I didn’t like how they worked with the cheap paper I’d ripped from a Portuguese book, so finally I switched to using regular coloured pencils, and just started getting a little absurd with my colours. I figured I may as well have a little fun with the process, because I didn’t really like how these were turning out.

I thought that if I added this torn paper with text to sketch on, I wouldn’t be too precious about the results because the portraits were “ruined” already. It was quite freeing to not really care about the end result and to just enjoy the creative process. And what I ended up with was a set of portraits that are quite interesting – that I don’t hate.

Urban Sketch at the Cafe with Analogous Colour Palette

I went to the mall yesterday, and as usual, I headed to the cafe by the Continente supermarket to do a bit of sketching. All of the people in the sketch were on different tables, but I combined them into one scene, without feeling the need to add tables and chairs. Although they are all obviously sitting, and one of them is holding a coffee cup. So hopefully that gives enough clues that the setting was a cafe.

Yesterday I published a post about experimenting with a bright colour triad and looked at the concept of picking an analogous colour palette from it to enhance the colour harmony of my urban sketches. I was really sceptical if using an analogous palette would actually work for people sketches.

I usually err on the side of bright colour when it comes to painting people’s clothes. Quite often, what they’re wearing, isn’t very dramatic, so I don’t mind applying colour that is more interesting than reality. I thought that using an analogous colour palette would be really limiting and uninspiring, but actually it’s quite thought provoking and challenging. You really have to think about how to add enough interest and diversity to the clothes, all the while be cognisant of the analogous colour palette.

Colour Triad I used for this sketch

Analogous colours I used for this sketch

I used a secondary colour and two tertiary colours for this urban sketch.

• Orange
• Yellow-Orange
• Red-Orange

In addition to my analogous trio of colours, I created a few unsaturated mixes of browns and greys for hair and skin tone. Then I added Cobalt Turquoise Light as my complimentary blue. I thought the sketch would turn out boring because of the limited palette. Instead I ended up with a sketch that has a clear sense of colour harmony, with a complimentary colour that adds balance and interest. The amount of negative space also adds an interesting component of balance to the composition.

I was trying to keep in mind the design concept of 70/20/10 – where 70% of the image is neutral tones or negative space, 20% is the analogous colours, and 10% is the complimentary spot colour. I don’t think I nailed it, but it’s heading in the right direction.

Poetic Reportage

I added a block of text on the left, and added a blue wash over the top to connect it to the rest of the scene.

So here to the dreamers, 
the watchers, the souls
Finding joy in the moment, 
as life takes its toll.
It's a curious scene,
this modern day race.
Where the art of chatter,
is lost without trace.