Continuing with a new week from the 2026 run through of Liz Steel’s watercolour course by doing the swatching exercises for four of our favourite colour mixing combinations.

Day 46 of sketching people. A visit to the Tavira Plaza to sketch groups of people in the cafe, to practice gestural sketching in pencil, before adding ink and watercolour. I also sketched portraits at the weekly Pencils4tea speed sketching event on zoom. Experimenting with ink lines with bleed.

Day 45 of sketching people. Sketches of Suhita Shirodkar, an urban sketchers who is presenting a lecture and demo at the next Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in Toulouse.

Revisiting a Marc Tarot Holmes Craftsy tutorial about Sketching People in Motion. Breaking down his approach to gesture sketching in pencil to capture the expressive nature of the line of action. Making me evaluate my decision to always sketch directly in Ink, and hoping gesture sketching will help me fit more feet on my page when I’m urban sketching people from life.

Day 44 of sketching people in ink and watercolour. Speed Sketching Portraits for the Drawing with Dylan live Zoom event. 30 second to 6 minute poses. And a series of blind contour self-portraits.

Day 43 of sketching people. 13 tonal portraits with spot colour sketched during the speed sketching event on Zoom – Drawing is Free, where every pose is the length of a music track.

Day 42 of Sketching people in ink and watercolour. Three urban sketches capturing daily observation commentary at Faro Airport in Portugal. Experimenting with reportage by adding text to two of the sketches, and a short poem about my urban sketching experience at the airport.

Day 41 of sketching people. Sketches of Delphine Zigoni, Len Grant, and Rita Sabler, three urban sketchers who are presenting a lecture at the next Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in Toulouse.

This is my first Reportage Urban Sketcher Profile, and features Norwegian illustrator Per Ragnar Møkleby. I cover Per’s method for using text to convey mood, embracing wonky lines, not being a slave to reality, daring to urban sketch, sketching complex scenes with simplified figures, and how self-portraits can save the day.

Day 40b A collection of portraits sketched at the weekly Pencils4tea speed sketching live zoom event, using colourful backgrounds with tonal sketched portraits.

Day 40a of sketching people. A collection of sketches of instructors who are hosting workshops at the next Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in Toulouse. Sketched from their promo videos

Day 39 of Sketching people in ink and watercolour. Social Commentary urban sketch with a short poem about doom scrolling, and today’s Earthsworld portrait challenge from Facebook.

Day 38 of sketching people in ink and watercolour consisted or drawing portraits. A speed sketching session with Dylan Sara on zoom, and a Drawing Earthsworld Challenge on Facebook. I experimented with adding colour backgrounds to the portraits.

The output for Day 37 of sketching people was a trio of portraits. A Dylan Sara 10 minute live stream on YouTube, a Drawing Earthsworld Challenge on Facebook, and a small sad self-portrait because I missed my speed sketching event tonight. I also look at the Envelope Method of sketching portraits.

Online resources for Life Drawing sessions (artistic nudity).

Day 36 of sketching people. This sketch is from a photo I took of the water taxi ride from Cabanas Beach to the mainland. I used a continuous line style, and evaluated how I could add more depth to this sketch with colour and line variation.

Day 35 of sketching people in ink and watercolour. Sketched from a travel photo from El Rompido, and from a couple of video freeze frames to create blind contour portraits. I also sketched along to a Dylan Sara Faces tutorial and captured some useful notes to bear in mind when sketching anything.

Despite finalising my urban sketching watercolour palette in 2025, and vowing not to change it. I needed a replacement for New Gamboge, and did a pigment assessment of the other yellows I have on hand, to see if one of them would be a good replacement. Turns out Permanent Yellow Deep is a much better warm yellow to have in my palette, and here’s why.

Day 34 of sketching people. Urban Sketching at the Tavira Plaza, in the food hall and at the medical centre. Leveraged Oliver Hoeller’s approach to assess the plan of attack for the why, what, and how of approaching your sketch. Dabbled in a bit of reportage, and resorted to some blind contour people sketches when I didn’t feel like achieving accuracy.

Day 33 of sketching people. Back in the studio to sketch from photos of No Pants Tube Ride event in London, and Dylan’s 10 minute Youtube live stream speed sketch.

Day 32 of sketching people. Out and about at Tavira Market, in search of sketching shoppers with dynamic poses. I urban sketched in Pencil and then added ink and watercolour later.

Day 31 of sketching people. Three different live sketching events online. But using different materials and styles for each one, including blind contour sketches for Drawing is Free event, and my usual line style for the Drawing with Dylan live zoom. A busy day of speed sketching.

Day 30 of sketching people. A successful Earthsworld Portrait sketch, and I attended the Drawing is Free speed sketching portrait session on zoom. Some interesting and challenging poses, and plenty of hands to sketch.

Despite finalising my urban sketching watercolour palette in 2025, and vowing not to change it. I’m getting rid of my Phthalo Green and replacing it with a premixed green. But I wanted to make sure I could still create the beautiful bright turquoise that I love when mixing Phthalo Green and Phthalo Blue.