Blind Contour Portrait of Lis Watkins

Urban Sketching Colour Mixing Prep

Before I went on my first sketch crawl with the Urban Sketchers Algarve group, I wandered around Tavira to take a closer look at the colour of the buildings. I thought we were meeting at the old market, so I took some photos of the stone walls, and then went home and did some colour mixing so I could get familiar with how to mix colours I’d need when urban sketching. As it turned out, we sketched at the new market, and there’s no fancy stone walls there.

Colour Mixing for Toulouse

But now that I’m planning on going to the Toulouse USk symposium in July, I wanted to get an ideas of colour mixing combinations I may use, so I can practice mixing them. When I’m on location, I don’t want to be worrying about how to mix colours. I want to focus on the lines I create and my composition. I’ve already done a little bit of colour theory for Toulouse, but there’s no harm doing a little bit more…

So I was trawling around the internet looking for inspirational sketches of Toulouse and I came across Lis Watkins Youtube video of her sketchbook tour when she joined the French Urban Sketchers Meet up in Toulouse.

Lis Watkins Toulouse Sketchbook Tour

I love the bright colours she used in a lot of her sketches. In one of the sketches she uses a peachy orange and a mint ice cream green combination, and it looks gorgeous. If that video doesn’t get us inspired and excited about sketching Toulouse – nothing will! I saw that Lis has also published a Zine of her sketches in Toulouse and Barcelona, which is available on Etsy.

When I saw Lis’s profile photo on YouTube I just had to sketch it. I think I’ve captured her smile, and I love the shape of her hair. Even though in reality her face is longer, I think it actually works to have a rounder face in the blind contour sketch.

It’s a good reminder that you don’t have to mimic reality to capture the essence of a place or person. When we sketch, we have carte blanche to create our own version of reality.