Timed Portrait from YouTube
Day 60 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. A random collection of portraits and people sketches today.
Sketch from Social Media
I saw this photo of an artist of social media and morphed the perspective to make the legs and feet have a slightly distorted perspective. I love sketching sketches of others people sketching, so when I see a photo that inspires me, I just have other sketch it. I’m really looking forward to attending the Toulouse Urban Sketchers Symposium in July, the whole city is going to be full of sketchers, so plenty of poses to capture there.
This sketch is a little different than my standard approach for sketching people. Usually I add tonal shading with a Tombow pen and add watercolour. But for this sketch I just used my Tombow pens to add and blend the colour.
I only have a small set of Tombow pens. Most of them are beige and grey for tonal shading, but I have a small collection of bright colours that I usually use for spot colours on a tonal sketch. I like how this portrait turned out – but of course, now I want more Tombow pens!
Drawing is Free Speed Sketching
Drawing is Free live sketching event is a one-hour speed sketching session, with each pose the length of a different music track, so each pose ends up being between 2 1/2 to 5 minutes. I joined half way through, and did a couple of sketches, but then got distracted with colouring in and creating a collage page.
The Orange Sketch is another ink and tonal sketch that I just couldn’t leave alone, and had to add spot colour on the eyes and background. Then I added some grey, blue, and orange papers to coordinate with the sketch, and added some receipt fodder which creates some ghost print.
Ghost Print Receipt for Collage Fodder
I don’t know what the technique is called, but it entails sticking clear tape over a receipt, and then putting it under the tap to wash the paper away. A lot of the ink is left on the tape, and some of the letters are faded (ghost text). The receipt was from my trip to the Pingo Doce supermarket today, and is a great way to attach a memory to a sketch.
I sketched one of the Drawing is Free poses using my new photo booth sketchbook, which I’m using to collect sets of three portraits of the same person. I only had time to do two portraits during the pose, so before the time ran out I sketched the room background behind her. There was a framed picture, a tv, and a fireplace, and these elements add a sense of place, and help to tell the story of this lady who was posing. When I’m using this photo booth approach for urban sketching, it’s easy to sketch a variety of portrait poses, but with a static pose it’s a little more difficult to create an interesting sequence of poses. So this idea of capturing part of the scene could be something I use again.
Timed Portrait from YouTube
I discovered the Art.Prof Youtube channel which has a collection of videos with 2 to 10 minute timed poses. The videos are about an hour long, and there’s plenty to choose from. I was flicking through one of the videos and came across this lady in the hat and coat. It was a black and white photo, so I took some creative licence with the colours I chose. I love this triad of Opera Pink and Colbalt Turquoise Light, and the background with is a Chartreuse yellow (made up of turquoise and Hansa Yellow Light).
I liked the sketch in black and white, and added grey tonal shading with a Tombow pen, but then I just had to add colour. I love tonal sketches. But I love colour more.
