My favourite portrait from tonight's speed sketching event

Day Fifty-Four of Sketching People

Continuing with day 54 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. Last month the Urban Sketcher’s Organisation released the event, workshop, lecture, and demonstration programme schedule for the 19th International Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in Toulouse. I’ve been watching the workshop promo videos and sketching the presenters. I also sketched form the USk livestream last night.

Drawing is Free Speed Sketching

Drawing is Free live sketching event is a one-hour speed sketching session, with each pose the length of a different music track, so each pose ends up being between 2 1/2 to 5 minutes. This is the first time I’ve joined the Monday morning session, but I happened to be up and about at 8am, so thought I’d give it a go.

Line Style

I started all of these sketches with a gesture sketch in pencil, and added some Tombow grey tonal shading during the pose. If there was time, I added some ink lines, but the majority of the ink lines were added afterwards. The orange borders were also added afterwards. Couldn’t resist a pop of colour.

It has taken me a couple of weeks to get into the groove with this style of sketching with pencil first. Ever since I started sketching, I’ve always wanted to sketch directly in ink. But I’m realising that when time is of the essence, it’s good to capture the big shapes and gesture of a portrait in pencil, and then if you run out of time, you have enough information to add pen lines. As long as you’ve managed to capture some of the essence of a person. It’s doesn’t have to be a complete likeness, there just has to be a connection.

Leaving the Pencil Guidelines

I actually like the look of leaving the pencil lines on the portrait, so that they show up under the tonal shading and ink lines. The pencil lines actually add a softer version of a crease or wrinkle, where ordinarily I’d add a black ink line. So although they’re just a base layer, sometimes they actually serve a purpose in the finished sketch to add character to the portrait.

Sketching Better Noses

Last year I set myself a target to get proficient with noses, and I’ve definitely made progress with this. Just shows that all it takes is repetition and repetition, and more repetition. These speed sketching classes are a great training ground. My favourite portrait is of Richard. His nose is beautiful!

I’ve created a roundup post of online live portrait sketching events online. Click here to see your options.

Sketching from Video

I watched the Urban Sketcher’s YouTube video about how to register and buy tickets for the Toulouse Symposiumster in July. And while they were getting ready to start I did a quick sketch of the three presenters.

I like doing these quick little sketches, although I didn’t do any of the presenters justice. But the goal was to capture a moment, not capture a likeness.

I carried on watching a couple of the promo videos from some of the presenters who are hosting a workshop at the Toulouse USk Symposium.

Owen Labbé is hosting the Designing Stylized Architecture On Location (Line & Wash) workshop and Virginia Hein is hosting The Dance of Line and Color (Reboot!) Expressive Storytelling in an Urban Landscape workshop.

You can watch all of the USk Symposium workshop promo videos on YouTube.