Getting inspired by the bright colours and vivid backgrounds of Mette Lehmann’s art. Some ideas for creating energy in your sketch by adding loose colour backgrounds.

Painting loose isn’t just about wobbly lines. Inspired by a video by Whee Teck on how to paint more loosely, I absorbed his advice about disrespecting the lines to create a looser feel to sketches.

A look at why I’m inspired to sketch the people I sketch, and how I approach choosing the starting point, and focal point of each sketch. What happens when I’m not inspired, and what happens when I leave objects out.

Another look at Andrew Tan’s (dreamscape) concepts and approaches for his comic strip style page layouts. This time around we’re looking at his use of limited colour and negative space.

Thanks to some inspiration from urban sketcher Roger Klaassen, I’ve been evaluating his people sketches where he’s included blocks of colour behind his figures, and then experimenting with this technique of adding blocks of colour to my urban sketches to see how they can be improved by the background method.

A quick people sketch at the cafe, and swatching a muted shade of green, that morphed into a beautiful skin tone shade using natural sienna, cobalt turquoise light, and opera pink. I also ruminate on how I sketch people and how they see themselves, and how those are two very different things when I sketch my version of reality.

Day 95 of sketching people. Today I sketched groups at the monthly Sol de Inverno event in Tavira. I used a different easel today, made out of an A5 watercolour book cover, and it worked really well.

Day 94 of sketching people at a live sketching event at a local art gallery. I faced the dilemma of wanting to add colour to my sketches but having to wait for the page to dry before I could begin another sketch.

Day 93 of urban sketching people at Tavira Plaza. Ink and Tonal Shading sketches on location, and discovered that if I leave the Tombow water soluable ink to “cure”, you can add watercolour on top of it and it doesn’t bleed or spread.

Easter Sunday wandering around Tavira looking for inspiration to sketch people and buildings. But I only managed a few sketches, one of them was the honey man at the craft fair by the river.

Day 91 of urban sketching people at the cafe. Sketched onto a watercolour paper background of coffee stains. I also prepped some page for my next cafe sketching trip, experimenting with different ways to apply the coffee and vary the patterns created.

Day Ninety of sketching people in ink and watercolour. Today I sketched at the cafe, using pages with coffee stains on them. One spread used coffee stain rings, and the other page was messier coffee stain splashes. Both effects are really conducive to sketching loose ink lines and and expressive approach to adding watercolour.

Day 89 of sketching people in ink and watercolour. A day sketching a group of Beach Bums, and experimenting with the type of expressive effects I’m able to create by adding salt to damp watercolour.

Day 87 of sketching people in ink and watercolour. A quick loose sketch of one of the local boules players, and then a loose application of watercolours.

Day 86 of sketching people. The calm of sketching people at the cafe when you know they’re not going to move much vs. the urgency of sketching people on a bench when you fear they may get up to walk at any minute means you create different line styles. Tight vs. loose.

Day 85 of sketching people. I did a couple of different versions of a sketch based on a photo of a women I took in London. The first version was uninspiring and not the least bit memorable, but my second version used a loose line and dynamic painting style inspired by Australian artist Toni Burt.

Day 82, 83, and 84 of sketching people at the cafe, garage, and on the boardwalk. Not a huge output, but took the opportunity of sketching in the cracks of life. Making the most of time I spent waiting around. Better than doom-scrolling.

In this article I look at a collection of people sketches by Tiago Crus and analyse how he uses a hierarchy of line, colour, and contrast. How he establishes a focal point, and how he creates a strong visual pathway to lead the viewer’s eye.

Using a sketchbook page full of overlapping people from a cafe during a recent urban sketching outing, I’ve analysed the different ways to improve the composition and layout of the sketch using thumbnail sketches. Experimenting with different layouts by adjusting focal point, increasing negative space, and creating a dynamic shape on the page, and making sure to leave space for a title.

Day 81 of sketching people in ink and watercolour. A detailed sketch of my MIL relaxing on the couch.

I delve into Andrew Tan’s (dreamscape) concepts and approaches for his comic strip style page layouts. He’s an urban sketcher and comic book artist based in Singapore. I also summarise his Skillshare class which covers how to sketch quicker and more simply using contour lines.

Day 79 and 80 of sketching people. Urban Sketching people during my train journeys around the UK. I sketched at Kings Cross, Doncaster, and Hull, on the train, and at the cafe. Experimented with some limited palette compositions.

I did Koosje Koene’s “How to Draw Distorted Perspectives” Tutorial, and here’s the exercises we did using two different approach. Firstly contour ink lines, and then another sketch using watercolour shapes, and adding minimal ink lines afterward.

Day 76, 77, and 78 of sketching people. Urban Sketching people and statues I encountered in London, and sketching the audience at the Royal Albert Hall during a concert. Merging colour and monochromatic sketches to increase the focal point, add depth, and simplify the composition.