Section of my urban sketch at the cafe

Day One Hundred and Forty-Two of Sketching People

Continuing on with day 142 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. A compilation sketch of different people while I was sitting at the cafe.

I think cross hatching is an art form in itself, and you really need to practice your hatching marks to get them looking organised. Mine are a little too erratic, because I don’t really have the patience for it. I’d much rather add shadow shading with darker watercolour or Tombow water soluable pens.

Urban Sketches at the Cafe with Limited Palette

I started sketching people at the cafe, but wasn’t very inspired by any of them, until a guy showed up for a beer, that looked a little like Rolf Harris. I’d been sketching people all similar sizes, but when this guy showed up I decided to make him a focal point, and sketched him bigger, and added his tabletop and beer.

The sketch looked a bit disjointed, with nothing to connect this random collection of people together. Ordinarily I paint my people sketches straight away, but today I had to settle with just sketching a double page of ink line sketches because I only had one fine liner with me. When I got home I decided to use a limited colour palette to create some unity and connection between the figures.

Most of the figures were painted with a watery and slightly more saturated layer of a cool sage green I mixed out of Manganese Blue Hue and Burnt Sienna Light. But for the focal point subject I used a more saturated version of that same mix. This helps him to blend in, but also to stand out a bit.

I was planning on only using a colour triad, but I needed to warm up the skin tones a little, so ended up using a little touch of Opera Pink and Pyrrol Scarlet. I created a warmer green for the phone using Manganese Blue Hue and Quin Gold, so that it didn’t get lost in the fray, and would stand out against the cooler green of the shirt in the background.

Greens from Manganese Blue Hue

I’m a bit of a novice when it comes to using greens, if you don’t get the shade and tone right, it can become really distracting and overwhelming. But I like both of these green tones I created from the Manganese Blue Hue. I used them for these people sketches for the clothes, but they would work well for trees or other foliage, for the sun-kissed and the shadow areas.

Urban Sketches at the Cafe with Cross Hatching

It was a bit quiet at the cafe when I first arrived, so I had to make do with sketching a nearby local road sweeper struggling with his dustpan and brush. All I’d taken with me was one fine liner, so I added some cross hatching to capture the shading. I didn’t like it, but it looked a lot better after I’d added some watercolour back at home.

I used the bright green I created for the phone in my cafe sketch, and because of the strength of the Quin Gold, it’s created a dynamic mix of colours rather than a flat green. The areas of white also help to lift this application from looking flat.

I’ve added these greens to the swatch book I created for Toulouse, because I think they’re going to come in handy for some non-intrusive greens, for foliage that’ll have some colour harmony with the reddish pink of the building facades.