Urban Sketch: People at the Clinic

Day Fifty-One of Sketching People

Continuing with day 51 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. An urban sketch outing to a medical clinic, which is nearly as good as an airport to sketch in.

Captive figures + Just waiting = Ideal Sketching Scenario

Urban Sketching at the Clinic

Today I was at a medical clinic, and I sketched one person at the reception desk, who was actually a combination of two people. I thought my first subject was going to be there for a while and started with his head, but then he walked away.

Then a lady walked up, and I captured her upper body and bag, and then she was gone! So I sketched the position of her legs from imagination, making sure to match the weight distribution of her twisted stance. This image actually turned realistically despite the Frankenstein-esque composition.

Then I adjourned to the waiting room and sketched a bunch of unhappy (or bored) people waiting for their appointments. I sketched one full body seated figure, although I misadjusted his long legs and cut his feet off, and then I did a portrait of him, and I was surprised by the likeness between these two gesture drawings. I also sketched two other portraits.

I usually sketch directly in ink, but today I did gesture sketches in pencil, and then filled in the missing detail in pencil. When I got home, I did the pen lines over the top, and then added watercolour.

Watercolour Triad

The layout of these figures was organic. That’s to say, it was unplanned and had no thought put into it, but I wanted to make sure there was so cohesiveness to this sketch. So I chose a colour triad of:

• Hansa Yellow Light (DS)
• Opera Pink (DS)
• Phthalo Blue Green Shade (DS)

I did a quick colour wheel before I started, and included the secondary colours. I’ve used this triad before and know that I love the vibrant greens and oranges this triad creates. It also creates a lot of lovely purples, but that’s not a shade that I use a lot.

I hadn’t fully explored all the potential mixes from this triad and was pleasantly surprised by the muted colours created with three colours. I was able to create a beautiful warm caramel colour, a sage green, and a winter green, a soft granulating grey, and a Moonglow alternative.

I’m creating a page for this Triad – click here to visit when it’s live.

Switching up my Urban Sketchbook

I just finished my A6 sketchbook, which is my go-to watercolour book for when I’m going out somewhere and may want to sketch, but don’t want to take too much with me. It’s small enough to fit in any bag, and the only other thing I need is a fineliner, and I’m set to capture a quick scene I encounter.

I also like this small sketchbook format because you’re not faced with a big A4 size piece of blank paper, you’re faced with a page that’s only a quarter of this size, which is much less intimidating. But rather than grab my usual A6 sketchbook, I took an A5 sketchbook which I’d already started. This is the size that I usually take out with me, when I’m intentionally going out to do an urban sketching session. As that’s when I’m more likely to sketch a larger scene, rather than just individual figures.

Page Layout

The only trouble with using a larger page is that you need to be more mindful of the layout of the different components on your page. I’d included a couple more pencil portraits on this page, but I erased them because the page looked too busy, and there wasn’t enough white space left.

This layout was created organically and the composition was a bit awkward, so I decided to use colour to create a hierarchy on the page. The person in the yellow coat is the focal point, and then your eye travels clockwise to the lady in the purple coat, to the full figure, and then the two portraits at the bottom.

I also created a connection between the figures using colour:

• The focal point with a yellow coat and the portrait with a yellow shirt
• The seated figure in turquoise jeans, and the portrait in the Turquoise jacket
• The portrait in the indigo blue jacket and the indigo blue bag on the lady with the yellow coat.

I also tried to make the two portraits in the middle of the sketch recede by using more muted colour, and the figures in the yellow coat, and the figure and portrait with the turquoise clothing to come to the foreground more.

It does seem like a lot of work for a sketch capturing a disjoined collection of people, but if my goal is to work my way up to A4 sketches of multiple objects and subjects, these smaller pages are my training ground.

Adding Text to my Urban Sketch

I added a page heading using some new alphabet stamps I acquired, not sure I’ll be using them much, it’s a bit of a faff to put together even this short word. I only have one set of uppercase, and one set of lowercase letters. So I have to mix upper and lower case if the word has the same letter twice.

I do want to be more intentional about adding more titles and locations to my urban sketch pages, but I need to find a simpler alternative than this stamping method. Maybe a stencil would be better.