Kick in the Creatives is hosting a month-long challenge called February Faces, so I decided to do month of blind contour self portraits in ink, and then finish them off with watercolour. I’m using their daily prompt list to drive the poses I’m sketching.

A blind contour sketch of Urban Sketcher and Illustrator Lis Watkins, to illustrate this post about her sketchbook Tour of Toulouse, where she uses bright and vibrant colours to capture the essence of this French city that’s hosting the new Urban Sketchers Symposium in 2026

Day 44 of sketching people in ink and watercolour. Speed Sketching Portraits for the Drawing with Dylan live Zoom event. 30 second to 6 minute poses. And a series of blind contour self-portraits.

Day 43 of sketching people. 13 tonal portraits with spot colour sketched during the speed sketching event on Zoom – Drawing is Free, where every pose is the length of a music track.

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.

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 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.

Find out how I overcame by creative block by using Blind Contour sketches to get inspired and motivated to sketch again.

I joined #tekenuurtje for the first time this week. It’s one of the few Draw This in Your Style challenges that features people.

Blind Contour Sketches for my 365 days of portrait and people sketches

The beginning of my Kick in the Creatives 365 day sketching challenge. Where I’m committing to sketching people for a year. In this first batch of sketches I eased myself into this challenge by doing blind contour portraits in pencil, and finished off with some line detail and watercolour. With a lot of accentuated (and comical) teeth.