Urban Sketch of a Woman at a Cafe in Olhao
Day 63 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. A little urban sketching adventure in my village of Cabanas.
Urban Sketching Trip to Olhão
It felt like the first day of Spring today, and the blue skies were too good an opportunity to miss, so I head out to Olhão for an urban sketching adventure via public transport.
I packed well, because I used everything at least once.
I packed up my urban sketching kit which included:
- 3 sketchbooks. An A5, A6, and my handmade Photo Booth Style sketch book
- Mini Watercolour Palette and waterbrush
- 2 fountain pens (Twisbi and Noodlers Flex Nib)
- 3 grey and 1 beige Tombow brush pens
- Fine Liner, Pencil, and an rubber
First Stop – the Bus Stop
There’s one tiny metal seat at the bus stop and I was nestled up against this fellow traveler. Thankfully she spent most of the time watching her phone, so I was able to sketch her without being noticed. Or maybe she noticed, but ignored me.
I much prefer traveling by train, because it’s easier to get a view of fellow passengers and sketch them. But the only option at this time was a bus, so I had to settle for sketching the bus driver. I captured a side profile, a reflection in the rear view mirror, and then I noticed his rain coat and umbrella behind his seat.
We’ve had non stop rain for weeks now, so I liked the addition of them items into the story. I thought it was a little more interesting that another side profile portrait.
Urban Sketch of Olhão Carnaval Celebrations
I thought it’d be a sleepy Friday in Olhao, but there were hundreds of kids who had obviously been taking part in Carnaval celebration parades, and were waiting on the central divider of the main road leading down to the sea. There were hoards of coaches waiting to be filled, so I stopped to capture the chaotic scene of children being patient! I found a group of kids that were all dressed in blue and white, and their parade looked like it had something to do with water. Maybe a homage to all the rain!
After my group got on their bus I carried on walking and there were clean up crews with brooms and bin bags cleaning up the carnage from the parades. I wanted to sketch more of them, but they were working really quickly and moving about, and some of them had leaf blowers doing the clean up, and it was really dusty. So I ducked down a side road and continued towards the sea.
Urban Sketch outside the Olhão Market
I was planning on sketching some of the old buildings in Olhao, but nothing grabbed me, so I headed straight to the Mercado do Olhao (Olhao Market). It’s an iconic building, so I had a go a capturing a tiny bit of it and added a person walking past, into the scene.
I usually start with ink lines, but for this building I did light pencil lines of the big shapes and then added watercolour. Then I went in and added some ink lines. This style of sketching a great way to add some depth to the scene, so that the person I added with heavier ink lines, is the focal point. I do try to just have the watercolour shapes in the background, but I just can’t stop myself adding ink lines.
This sketch was also an experiment in page layout. The sketches are an upside down L-shape on the page, and the window is a more detailed version of the window in the main sketch. The concept works, but how I did it doesn’t. I think it would have looked better if the window had had some kind of frame around it.
Layouts are something I’m going to focus on in the coming months. But I need to explore the topic and look at solutions that are relevant to sketching people. A lot of what I’ve come across so far, is related to sketching buildings and landscapes, and doesn’t obviously translate to sketching people.
Urban Sketch inside the Olhão Market
There’s two market buildings in Olhao, one only sells seafood, and the other is produce and other local products like honey, herbs and spices, etc. I headed to the produce market, it’s less stinky, and the floor isn’t soaking wet.
I was attracted to this stall because it was at the end of the row, and there was a wall for me to lean against while I sketched. I also liked the row of gourds/squash lined up at the back of the stall. I was sketching quickly, and didn’t plan the focal point very well, or achieve a feeling of depth very well. This is one sketch that would benefit from having the background captured with light pencil lines and watercolour, and no ink. That’s how I did the tomatoes seen between the figures. They have a presence and add some context to the stall, but they aren’t distracting. The gourds would have looked good in this style as well. The man in the middle in his yellow ensemble is an obvious focal point, but his clothes should have been more saturated, and the women’s clothes less saturated, so that he jumps out at the focal point.
One thing I do like about this composition is how the figures overlap, and there seems to be an energy or franticness about the scene. All vying for the stall holders attention maybe.
Urban Sketch at Lazaro’s Cafe outside Olhão Market
It was sunny and warm down by the water, so I found a busy cafe with lots of customers just whiling away the afternoon.
I’m not too keen on this guy. He’d been sitting there a while, and it took me a while to get around to sketching him, and then it looked like he was getting ready to leave, so I had to sketch really quickly. After he’d gone I planned the rest of the sketch around him. I added the menu board to add a reminder of the location, and there was a couple of people sitting a nearby table that I sketched to add a bit of context.
When my lounging man moved away, he was replaced by a Swedish woman with equally bad posture! It was the position of her head and neck that intrigued me, and also her clothing.
Urban Sketch on the Train Ride Home
There were a lot of students waiting at the train platform for my return journey, but this boy hunched on the floor, pouring over his phone, got my attention. I just loved the shaped of his posture in that shapeless sweatshirt. I added French Ultra Marine as a watery shadow layer on the sweatshirt to add some depth, and I like the level of granulation it left over the lime green base layer.
The train was packed and was rocking and rolling across the tracks, so I only did one sketch. It was so bumpy that it made it difficult to sketch with the Twisbi fountain pen I was using. Next time I’ll try sketching with pencil first, and then ink at home.
All in all a busy day’s sketching. I’d hoped to be more mindful about page layout and creating pleasing compositions, but I just got into the sketching zone and focused on capturing realistic poses and postures, and layouts fell by the wayside. But they’ll always be a next time…
Experimenting with Comic Strip Layout from my day out
I thought I’d have a go at creating a comic strip layout based on my urban sketching day out. These sketches were all done from my original sketches above, and all of them were sketched really quickly. I just wanted to see how effective a comic strip layout approach to conveying the day would be. So this is more about the layout and concept, and less about the quality of the sketching.
I’m going to write a separate article about my thoughts for this approach to documenting a day, to evaluate the pros and cons, and what worked and what didn’t . You can read the Cartoon strip layout for an Urban Sketching Day Out article here when it’s published.
