Urban Sketch at the Cafe

Day One Hundred and Forty-Three and Forty-Four of Sketching People

Continuing on with day 143 and 144 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. A quick sketch at the cafe with a poem about the draw of a mobile phone, and a scene with two women at a different cafe using a limited colour palette.

Urban Sketch and Poetic Reportage at the Cafe

A quick line drawing at the cafe to capture this innocuous scene of a lady sitting alone and trying to be in the moment and enjoy her surroundings, but she couldn’t resist the draw of reaching for her phone again and again.

I used to be particular about sketching table legs and chairs, but now I’m quite at peace with leaving them out of a scene if they don’t add anything to the story.

In a cafe nook she seeks some peace,
A moment's calm - a sweet release,
But that bright screen with all it's charms,
Keeps pulling her with its pixel arms.

Urban Sketch Scene of Two Ladies at the Cafe using a limited colour palette

I don’t often bother with background elements in my people sketches, but technically, for a sketch to be deemed an urban sketch, it can’t just be a sketch of a person, there has to be a sense of place provided one at least on background element. So today I started sketching some of the background elements after I’d sketched my two ladies.

In actuality, the surrounding area near this cafe is pretty ugly, so I did a pick and choose of different elements to illustrate the scene, which is a lot prettier than the reality of this cafe location. It’s still reality – but it’s my version of reality. Or what they call – artistic licence.

I wanted to incorporate the greens I discovered in my urban sketch the other day, so used the colour triad of  Manganese Blue Hue, Burnt Sienna Light, and Quin Gold. I also used a little bit of some reds and pinks to warm the skin tone up and create a focal point of the phones.