Urban Sketch of lady on the phone

Day One Hundred and Thirty-Six of Sketching People

Continuing on with day 136 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. Urban Sketching at the cafe with some poetic reportage.

I’ve been going to a different cafe recently, one that’s next to the physio I’ve been going to for rehab to my broken hand. I either go to my appointment early and have a quick sketch before my session, or I’ll relax after my session with a longer sketch. Today I went after my physio session, and because it was closer to lunchtime, there were plenty of people to choose from to sketch.

Urban Sketching at the Cafe

This woman was briefly on the phone and I managed to sketch her head and the hand holding her phone. The phone was oversized, and consequently, her hand was sketched oversized too. It wasn’t intentional, I was just sketching really quickly before she changed her pose. She had her other hand up in the air, and I managed to start sketching that, but then she moved it. I had the dilemma of trying to sketch from memory, or using my own hand to check how many knuckle bends should be visible. So I chose my own hand, but because it was closer to me, this hand got sketched even more over-sized!

The story I was trying to tell was about the huge brick of a phone this lady was using, so having these hands depicted as oversized actually fits the scene. They also help to accentuate this area of the sketch as the focal point.

Colour Triad

For this sketch I used colour triad of:

• Opera Pink
• Hansa Yellow Light
• Cobalt Turquoise Light

The lady had a bright yellow dress on, so I knew where I wanted to start on the colour wheel to start my set of analogous colours.

Analogous Colour Palette

My intention was to use a primary, secondary and tertiary colour in my analogous colour palette, starting with the HYL, but because the HYL is a saturated colour, I didn’t want to use it straight out of the palette. It would have vied for attention against the focal point colour.

So used the pure yellow with just a hint of the OP to warm it up, which gives it a slightly desaturated feel. I continued around the colour wheel to use a yellow-orange and an orange.

I used the yellow-orange for the chair and the flowers on the dress, and the bright orange for her finger nails. Then I chose the CTL as the complimentary colour for this orange.

Background Colour

If I’d used pure CTL as the background accent colour it would have drawn attention away from the focal point in the sketch (the oversized hands, the phone and fingernails), so I added a little bit of the yellow-orange to my CTL to desaturate it.

Rather than having two flat bands of colour to frame the poem, I dropped in clean water to create the bloom effect. Not only does this help to create more interest in the background, it helps to give it a lighter feel. CTL is opaque, and by adding the blooms, those additional areas of lighter tone stop this it feeling so dense.

Urban Sketch Poem

Before I added the bands of turquoise I mapped out where I wanted the poem to start and end. I didn’t want it to be in the centre of the page, instead I placed it in the centre between the top of the head and the top of the chair. I like this off-centre page placement as it gives it a little more interest.

In the cafe buzz, she claims her throne.
A queen of connections, but often alone.
Her super-sized hands, they clutch her screen.
She chats. Non-stop. Like a caffeinated teen.