March 7-11, 2022 – Pandemic Relief Edition!

This event is in it’s 6th year, and is hosted by urban sketcher’s Marc Taro Holmes and Liz Steel.

I love sketching people in ink, and this annual sketching event #OneWeek100People was made for me! I like to think of it as the sketching Olympics. It’s an event that I can train for, so that I can hit the ground running when this art challenge rolls around again.

The only mistake I made with the 2022 event was my choice of sketchbook. I special-ordered a concertina sketchbook. But when it arrived I was disappointed to discover the pages were 100% cotton paper, which isn’t really conducive to my style of sketching. It’s great for loose, wet on wet painting. But I like sketching directly with fountain pen, and my nibs didn’t like the paper at all.

Sketching wasn’t effortless, and I didn’t like the paper’s texture. So although I took part in the event, it wasn’t as enjoyable as I thought it would be. But I finished the challenge and drew 100 figures. Below is a selection (about half) of the sketches I drew.

Urban Sketches

Here’s a selection of live sketches I did on public transport, at cafes and the local farmer’s market:

The great thing about looking back on these images is that I remember each and every one of these people I sketched. I remember the market I went to and the cafes I sat at and the journeys I took. These sketches captured a moment in time, and that’s the wonderful thing about urban sketching people.

Sketching from Photographs

At the time the Russian Invasion of Ukraine was all in the news so I created a couple of compilations from various news source images.

Creating your own compositions from multiple sources to sketch a group is a great way to get practice at sketching live groups of people.

Sketching from Imagination

I also used this sketch event to try an abstract composition. This was towards the end of the event, and I was running out of time, so I drew these loose people sketches to fill up one of my pages.

This feels more like a reportage sketch than a basic urban sketch, because of the frantic look of the lines, which add a lot of energy.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s event, and seeing how my sketching skills have improved over the year. If you love sketching people, then this is the one must-attend event to get on your calendar.

NOTE: I did these Ukrainian Refugee sketches before I even knew what reportage was a thing. But now here I am in 2026 and looking back at old sketches, I find it fascinating that it has taken me another 4 1/2 years to circle back to my interest in reportage. All the time I’ve been focused on refining my line style, and learning how to let go of controlling watercolour, and getting more confident in urban sketching people, it feels like reportage has been waiting patiently in the wings to reappear.