Sketch of Per Ragnar Møkleby (Based on photo by: Arne Olav Lunde Hageberg)
Exploring Reportage Artists
I’m becoming increasingly interested in how different urban sketchers approach reportage to combine their sketches with text. So I’m taking a deeper dive into the style choices adopted by different reportage artists. I want to see what resonates with me, and which tips I can pick up along the way to incorporate into my own approach to reportage.
Introduction to Per Ragnar Møkleby
Per Ragnar Møkleby is a Norwegian illustrator creating art for a vast array of print and editorial outlets. As well as being a multi-talented commercial artist, he’s also an avid urban sketcher and reportage artist. He uses his sketchbook to create a visual journal to document everyday observations with sketches and text.
In recent years I have become hooked on the sketchbook and using drawing and text as a way of relating to the world, collecting memories and playing in everyday life.
Per Ragnar Møkleby
My overview of Per is based on his online presence on Instagram, his website, and the Urban Sketchers Org website. I’m starting this series as a learning exercise, and I share my insights below. I hope you get something (knowledge and/or inspiration) from it too.
Reportage and Sketching Tips
Here are the reportage and sketch tips I’ve included, after reviewing Per’s approach to reportage. You can click on these links to jump directly to the specific section.
- Use your text to convey the mood
- Choose sketching situations that create wonky lines
- Leave reality behind
- Dare to sketch
- Complex scenes with simplified people
- Self-portraits save the day
Some of these tips are new to me, and piqued my interest. Whereas, other tips are already part of my daily sketching habit, and I’ve included samples of my sketches to illustrate the tips in action.
Use your Text to Convey the Mood
When Per attends presentations, lectures or talks, he’ll accompany his sketch with quotes that grab his attention. So during Trump’s Davos speech on TV, Per took the same approach when sketching a portrait of the US President and captured a myriad of his quotes.
I like the haphazard layout of the quotes. It looks a bit erratic and unorganised, which is very fitting, based on the source of the inspiration!
So if we’re trying to capture a particular feeling at an event or to convey a specific vibe, it’s not just the role of the sketch to depict it. We can also leverage the composition of the text to help us accentuate the mood we’re trying to evoke.
Choose sketching situations that create wonky lines
One of Per’s tips is to choose sketch locations that can help you remove the pressure for your sketches to be accurate with perfect lines, and to be more accepting of loving your wonky lines.
I used to be so critical of my wonky and loose lines, and I strived to achieve anatomical perfection when I sketched people. But I realised that the more confident I’ve become sketching people live, the more I want to capture the energy and feeling of a scene. It’s those elements that are far more important than striving for a set of perfect lines.
My Urban Sketching in the Car
I took an Uber ride recently to get to one of my favourite urban sketching locations, and took the opportunity of sketching my driver. It was a good warm up before my “main event”, but it was also a reminder to myself to embrace the wonkiness.
My Urban Sketching on the Train and Platform
As well as sketching in cars, I’m also an avid fan of sketching during local trains. I’ve done it so much, that now the ticket conductors on the local route recognise me, and stop by for a look at who my victim is sketching. Sometimes the ride is smooth, any on other parts of the track it gets a bit rocky. You never know what you’re going to get, so you just have to go with the flow. Embrace the wonkiness and errant lines.
Wherever there’s waiting, there’s a chance to sketch. I often sketch at the platform while we’re waiting for the train. It’s hard not to get wonky lines and wonky proportions when you’re standing up to sketch, and sketching quickly in case the people walk away.
Leave Reality Behind
Per’s has been experimenting with using a set of 4 water-brushes filled with a set of muted primary colours and a grey. This approach creates a colour harmony between his sketches, and I’ve seen this same approach used effectively by Oliver Hoeller in his travel sketches. Using a limited set of colours is an effective way to bring some simplification to a sketch, but it’s also a powerful way to create a focal point.
My Leaving Reality Behind Approach
If I’m out urban sketching and don’t want to mess around with adding watercolour, I usually rely on Tombow markers to add tonal values or some spot colour.
In these airport sketches I had a couple of neutral brush pens (a warm and cool grey), a light sand (Towbow 990) brush pen for flesh tones, and dusty rose (Tombow 772) brush pen for a gentle blush to the cheeks.
These were part of the 2024 100 people in a week sketch challenge. I was trying to capture as many people as possible at the airport, because it was a hive of activity. The task was made easier because I only had a limited palette to choose from.
Dare to Sketch
In some situations it can be intimidating to pull out our sketchbooks to sketch. This is how Per felt at a music even he attended in Skein, but then a jazz related quote was projected on a big screen behind the band, which included “I dare you”, and he rose to the challenge.
As urban sketchers it’s easy to feel self-conscious about sketching, especially when we’re urban sketching people. I usually try to locate myself far enough away so as not to be caught staring, but close enough to capture some detail. Sometimes it’s not always possible, but if a scene is worth sketching, then we need to dare ourselves to shrug off the doubts and just start sketching.
Complex scenes with simplified people
I really like the loose feel to Per’s line work, and his has a great sense of composition. In the Dare to Sketch instagram post above, I loved how there were partially sketched people in this busy and complex scene.
What I loved about Per’s version is that:
- some people are just floating heads
- there’s partial arms
- the way the musicians trousers just taper off into nothing
- the limited use of shading on the men’s trousers and the girls tops
- how the shading draws your eye to the bottom of the sketch
- how the colour trumpet guides your eye up
I’m often overwhelmed with complex scenes, and struggle to identify what to include and what to leave out. So I decided to do my own version of the scene to practice with Per’s simplified line style and approach to a complex composition.
I also used this exercise to explore the approach of leaving reality behind by just using a grey and one colour (Tombow 985 Chrome Yellow).
In Per’s version he used spot colour for all the instruments, the drink, and the title. But I added spot colour for the one instrument I drew, and the hair and facial hair on some of the people. My intention was to use the colour to create a connection between the instrument and the audience.
Making a Connection
I liked this concept of creating a connection between different elements within the same scene, and wondered if it this approach would also work to tie different scenes appearing on the same page together. I often struggle to bring a cohesive feel to a page, when it’s just a series or random figures. So as a learning exercise I did my version of some of Per’s figures and consolidated them onto a page together.
I used the same spot-colour approach, and connected the figures with the yellow elements. Even though this page has two distinctly different scenes, they work together because of that spot-colour. I also used the grey Tombow for the chair-back, to create a barrier between the two elements, but I’m not sure if I like this as it is – I think it needs to be something a bit lighter or looser.
But I do really like how the overall shape of both sketches are mirroring each other, kind of like a right-angled triangle shape, especially once I’d added the text to the two figures on the right.
Self-Portraits Save the Day
The great thing about self-portraits is that you don’t have to look very far for the model! So to get over an analytical task and tap back into his creative side, Per whipped out his watercolours to create a much needed playful self-portrait.
Although we may all be striving to urban sketch people in a style we’re comfortable with, there’s nothing more freeing than experimenting with different sketching styles to whip up a random self-portrait sketch. There’s a certain freedom that comes with experimenting with different versions of your own face and features.
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Some of my Self-Portraits
I’ve reverted to sketching self-portraits, in different styles and using different materials. Some are more realistic, but I prefer an illustrative style bordering on caricature, because they’re much more playful.
I was waiting to attend a speed sketching session the other day, and because I got the time-zone wrong, I missed the session by an hour. I saw my face reflected in the computer screen, so did a self-portrait as a consolation prize to cheer myself up.
So if your inspiration is waning, or you want a quick creative diversion, a playful self-portrait might just be the antidote you need.
Per and Urban Sketchers
It was such fun taking a deeper dive into Per’s urban sketching philosophy, I know I’ve only scratched the surface on his talent. He was an attendee at the Poznan Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in 2025, and hosted workshops at the USk symposium held by his local chapter in Oslo. Hopefully it won’t be too long before he’s hosting a workshop at the global symposium.
