Two men in similar shirts at the cafe

Day Sixty-Eight of Sketching People

Day 68 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. Celebrated getting my Urban Sketchers Symposium ticket with a glass of wine down at the local cafe, and kept myself busy with an urban sketch of people.

Urban Sketching at the Cafe

I wandered down to the end of the street to sit in the sunshine and sketch some people. These two guys were on different tables, but I sketched them together because they had similar shirts on. I didn’t want to add any of the bar’s features in the background, so added this yellow panel. The addition of this bright block of colour really helps to make both of these figures pop more

Trying a new Watercolour Pencil and Tombow Technique

I took my watercolour pencils with me, but forgot my water brush, so I used my pale grey Tombow brush pen to dissolve the pencil line pigment. This technique worked quite well on these shirts. There’s a lot of texture, especially on the yellow/tan shirt, and you can still see some of the pencil line pigment, and where the tonal shading was added, it’s desaturated the colour. Where I added additional shadow areas, it all blends in well together. This technique works better with the lighter colour than the turquoise, which is quite a dense pigment, and doesn’t have quite as much texture variance.

I used a similar watercolour pencil and Tombow combination on this next sketch, but it desaturated the colours too much on these smaller figures. I think because there were bigger areas of watercolour pencil to blend.

When I got back home I added some lime green watercolour paint onto the guys shirt to make him stand out a little more. I’m not a fan of all those desaturated colours on the other figures.

Improving a Group Composition with Background Contrast

These two couples were sitting in different areas of the bar, but I combined them into one scene, but I still wasn’t happy this the composition. I decided to see how I could improve this group sketch, by adding a background panel with the bar’s logo, behind three of the figures. This panel exists but in a different position in the bar.

I left the guy in the green striped shirt out of the background panel, to see whether my eye would be drawn to the figures with the dark background, or the guy against the white background. I think the guy on the left works as the focal point, because he’s isolated and that white background creates a more dramatic area of contrast – and of course the more saturated colour of his shirts helps.

I would have thought the dark background would have been more dominant, but this just goes to show the power of white space.

Evolution of an Organic Page Layout

I started sketching this guy in my third sketch. He was waiting at the pavement sitting on his bike, one foot on the curb, chatting to some of the people at the cafe. I thought he’d be there a while, so I started sketching him. But no sooner had I started sketching his head and tee-shirt, when he cycled off.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with him, but I added a sketch to the bottom of the page of two new arrivals. When I started sketching them, I noticed that all three of them had their tee-shirt sleeves rolled up… very 1980’s – all that’s missing was a pack of Marlboros, and Bruce Springsteen playing on the sound system.

I like the addition of the borders around the figures. I made the background behind the guy a little bit darker to see if it would draw my eye, but because the lady’s clothes are vivid lime green and pink, they attract the eye first, and then it travels up.

I developed this random sketch into a reportage post, but I wish I’d put a bit more thought about the layout of the text. It looks a bit like an afterthought, when it could have been a bit of a focal point to support the theme of the rolled up shirt sleeves.

I love sketching people. You notice the most inconsequential elements within a scene, that you can suddenly build a moment in time around… and it goes without saying – I just love sketching with bright vivid colours.