ROVING JAY

Day 40a of sketching people. A collection of sketches of instructors who are hosting workshops at the next Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in Toulouse. Sketched from their promo videos

Day 39 of Sketching people in ink and watercolour. Social Commentary urban sketch with a short poem about doom scrolling, and today’s Earthsworld portrait challenge from Facebook.

Day 38 of sketching people in ink and watercolour consisted or drawing portraits. A speed sketching session with Dylan Sara on zoom, and a Drawing Earthsworld Challenge on Facebook. I experimented with adding colour backgrounds to the portraits.

The output for Day 37 of sketching people was a trio of portraits. A Dylan Sara 10 minute live stream on YouTube, a Drawing Earthsworld Challenge on Facebook, and a small sad self-portrait because I missed my speed sketching event tonight. I also look at the Envelope Method of sketching portraits.

Online resources for Life Drawing sessions (artistic nudity).

Day 36 of sketching people. This sketch is from a photo I took of the water taxi ride from Cabanas Beach to the mainland. I used a continuous line style, and evaluated how I could add more depth to this sketch with colour and line variation.

Day 35 of sketching people in ink and watercolour. Sketched from a travel photo from El Rompido, and from a couple of video freeze frames to create blind contour portraits. I also sketched along to a Dylan Sara Faces tutorial and captured some useful notes to bear in mind when sketching anything.

Despite finalising my urban sketching watercolour palette in 2025, and vowing not to change it. I needed a replacement for New Gamboge, and did a pigment assessment of the other yellows I have on hand, to see if one of them would be a good replacement. Turns out Permanent Yellow Deep is a much better warm yellow to have in my palette, and here’s why.

Day 34 of sketching people. Urban Sketching at the Tavira Plaza, in the food hall and at the medical centre. Leveraged Oliver Hoeller’s approach to assess the plan of attack for the why, what, and how of approaching your sketch. Dabbled in a bit of reportage, and resorted to some blind contour people sketches when I didn’t feel like achieving accuracy.

Day 33 of sketching people. Back in the studio to sketch from photos of No Pants Tube Ride event in London, and Dylan’s 10 minute Youtube live stream speed sketch.

Day 32 of sketching people. Out and about at Tavira Market, in search of sketching shoppers with dynamic poses. I urban sketched in Pencil and then added ink and watercolour later.

Day 31 of sketching people. Three different live sketching events online. But using different materials and styles for each one, including blind contour sketches for Drawing is Free event, and my usual line style for the Drawing with Dylan live zoom. A busy day of speed sketching.

Day 30 of sketching people. A successful Earthsworld Portrait sketch, and I attended the Drawing is Free speed sketching portrait session on zoom. Some interesting and challenging poses, and plenty of hands to sketch.

Despite finalising my urban sketching watercolour palette in 2025, and vowing not to change it. I’m getting rid of my Phthalo Green and replacing it with a premixed green. But I wanted to make sure I could still create the beautiful bright turquoise that I love when mixing Phthalo Green and Phthalo Blue.

Day 29 of sketching people in ink and watercolour, was all about not liking my first pass at Doug Jackson’s 10 minute ink challenge and the Sketching Earthworld’s Challenge. So I had a second attempt at both challenges and learnt a couple of valuable lessons about using the right pen for the job, and the value of walking away from a subject if it doesn’t inspire you.

Day 28 of sketching people in ink and watercolour. Today was an urban sketching session at the Tavira Plaza Mall, where I spent a couple of hours in the Food Hall sketching and painting diners.

Day 27 of sketching people in ink and watercolour. A chunky man for the Drawing Earthsworld Challenge portrait. A people sketch compilation for a postcard Swap. And three sketches of people from travel photos I’ve taken in Turkey and Portugal to show a difference between illustrative and looser sketching styles.

Day 26 of sketching people, and today I participated in the Pencils4Tea speed sketching zoom event, drawing portraits in ink and pencil.

Day 25 of sketching people and I experimented with painting tonal shapes then adding ink afterwards, and Inking figures first and adding tonal shading. Two different approaches with different results.

Kicking off a new run through of Liz Steel’s watercolour course by doing the first exercise, to create a swatch grid of every colour in my urban sketching palette in a watery wash, a juicy wash, and a pasty wash.

Day 24 of sketching people. A quick and loose urban sketch of a boy waiting for his mum. And at night I attended the speed sketching portrait event with Dylan, and churned out some pretty consistent portraits within the 30 second to 6 minute time limit.

Day Twenty-Three of a 365-day people sketch challenge. Ventured to a cafe for some live sketching of people, and then joined the Drawing is Free speed sketching zoom session for some live portrait practice.

Day Twenty-One and Twenty-Two of a 365-day people sketch challenge. Only got around to the Earthsworld’s portrait challenge, and refining my approach by relying less on lines to denote changes in tone, and relying more heavily on the use of watercolour values.

Day Twenty of a 365-day people sketch challenge. Experimenting with a bright colour triad for the Earthsworld’s portrait challenge. A portrait of Oliver Hoeller to kick off my Colour Confidence Tutorials. And a Reportage sketch of a fond farewell at Faro Airport.