Urban Sketch at Bar 66

Day Fifty-Three of Sketching People

Continuing with day 53 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. A quick jaunt out to a new corner bar in the village, before the heaven’s opened and I scarpered back home. 

Urban Sketching People

I was messing around with my watercolour pencils (making watercolour shorties) yesterday, and I decided to add a sepia #53 watercolour pencil to my urban sketch kit. Today was the first day sketching with it instead going straight in with ink, or beginning with a pencil gesture sketch and adding ink.

The idea was to sketch in the watercolour pencil, bleed the edges with water and then fill in with watercolour. But I didn’t like the results, so I added fine liner pen on top.

Ink Lines

I don’t know why I keep experimenting with different sketching styles, when I know I like the higher contrast of sketching with black ink lines. It is good to experiment, but if I keep getting distracted by different techniques, tools, or styles, I’m never going to finesse the style I know I like the look of.

Muted Colour

As well as not liking the line style of this sketch, I didn’t like all of the muted colours I used. I’m most definitely a big fan of bright colours, but today I chose to keep the colours true to life. But this results in a blah! sketch, with no vibrancy.

Failures are not a Failure!

The perspective of the composition is off too. So basically I don’t like anything about this sketch. But it’s not a complete failure. Each sketch that fails has a lesson to teach us, and this one taught me that I need to stick to my black ink lines and vibrant watercolours. I need to sketch my own version of reality, and forget about sketching a replica of what I see.

This bar only open last month, and it’s only a short walk from home, so I know I’m going to have plenty of opportunities to wander down there and sketch the wildlife.