Urban Sketch at Faro Airport Café
Day Forty-Two of Sketching People
Continuing with day 42 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. Today I captured three scenes from the airport. I made the mistake of using a non-waterproof fine liner for my first two sketches, so the watercolour looks muddy and lost its vibrancy. But for the final sketch I used a waterproof fine liner and Tombow markers, which resulted in a much brighter and vibrant sketch. I’m realising that the more I sketch, the more I’m leaning towards using vivid and bright colours. Who needs realism anyway!
Urban Sketching
These are the two sketches where I used a Pilot G-Tec C4 needlepoint fine liner, which ends up having a slight bleed. I really like the feel of this style of nib on the page, so I’m hoping to find an alternative needlepoint fine liner that’s waterproof. This Pilot C4 pen glides across the page like a dream, even on grainy watercolour paper.
Windy Day at Faro Airport Sketch
This was a compilation sketch. As is usually the case when I do my group sketches. The people were in different areas outside the airport. The first girl in the yellow coat was waiting to return her rental car, and the other three were in line at the taxi/uber area. But they all ended up being sketched into a single scene in my A6 sketchbook.
If I used a larger sketchbook, I’d have sketched the scenes as vignettes. But when you’re an opportunistic sketcher in motion, it’s much easier to use a small sketchbook. But that does limit your composition options.
Unpacking at the Exit
This Exit sketch was ruined by using this pen with bleed. What could have been an expressive and vibrant sketch, is now just a blur of values. There’s not enough colour variance between the people’s clothes and the neutral background, and they all merge together.
My intention was that the focal point was the red Exit sign, and then the visual path would travel down to their vibrant clothing.
Café Sketch
To overcome the disappointment of the bleed I got with using the non-waterproof fine liner, I switched to my usual Staedtler pigment liner 0.05 for this sketch, and then used a couple of Tombow colours to create a vibrant final sketch.
I also added a poem to capture the mood of the scene:
Airports are for waiting. To Fly away and leave.
To meet a new arrival, or wave goodbye and grieve.
For me this place is magic, with people on the move.
I pray they take a seat, so my pen gets in the groove.
I plot up in a café, and open up my book.
I sketch unwitting victims. Fingers cross that they don't look!
Felix Scheinberger Watercolour Palette
I really do prefer creating clean ink lines and using bright colours. One of the most fearless urban sketchers when it comes to his liberal use of vivid watercolours, has to be Felix Scheinberger.
I’m not about to abandon my Daniel Smith and Winsor Newton watercolours, but I have used this swatch of Felix’s Horadam set to inform my colour mixing combinations.
It was a bit of a wet and soggy Sunday today. And although I spent a lot of time in the studio, I’ve been engrossed in looking at all of the promo videos for the urban sketchers hosting workshops and giving lectures at the the next Urban Sketchers Symposium in Toulouse later this year. I’ll be back to sketching some of these urban sketchers tomorrow.
