Urban sketch with water-soluble ink, and a poem

Day One Hundred and Thirty-One of Sketching People

Continuing on with day 131 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. Urban sketching people in a café and at a windy beach in Lagos.

Urban Sketching on a Coffee-Stained Page

I’d prepped a coffee-stained page from a precious café-sketching outing, and when I saw this workman reading a paper, I knew he’d fit perfectly on this page. Much as I love colour, I really like black and white sketches, and for this one I used black in and my Tombow pens for shade.

I really like the blotchy looking coffee stain that adds texture to the page without becoming distracting. I only added a table-top to give a little indication of his location, because the story was really about the newspaper and his clenched fist. Rather than sketching a background to add to the story, I relied on adding a poem about his activity and reaction.

Urban Sketching a Beach Scene

Later in the day we took a road trip to the west side of the Algarve. It’s not quite so hot over there, but it’s a hell of a lot windier. The wind was so strong, that there was only a few people on the beach willing to get sandblasted.

We had a wind-break up and a couple of umbrellas, and this lady lay down near us, I think to benefit from the shelter we provided. All she had was a shopping bag for protection from the wind. I thought I’d just do one sketch, but as soon as I put my sketchbook away, she moved position and I was inspired to sketch her again. Then I put my book away again. She moved position. I got my sketchbook out for a final sketch.

I used a water soluble Stabilo fine 0.4 pen for this sketch and a water bush. The ink has a gentle bleed when you diffuse the lines with water, and I really like the shade of this ink. I added some extra tonal shading with a Tombow pen. I only had grey ones with me, but it would have looked better with a warm grey or a beige Tombow.

I added a short poem to tell the story of the scene, and wrapped the lines around the contours of her body to help to tie the scene together, and accentuate the idea of her curves.

Poetry as a Story Telling Element

A picture of a person without any background or foreground elements to help to set the scene, isn’t technically an urban sketch.

One of the key tenets of urban sketching is that what you sketch needs to tell a story. If you only sketch the figure with no other elements in the sketch, it really doesn’t have an obvious story – and therefore it’s isn’t a true urban sketch.

But I really like just sketching people, without having to sketch too many background elements. But I absolutely want my sketches to tell a story, and that’s why I’ve realised that I can elevate my sketches from simple “people sketches” to sketches that tell a story – by adding a short poem, or a couple of lines of rhyming text. I’m getting into the rhythm of creating these poetic urban sketches, and really love the marriage of pictures and words. I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to realise that it’s possible to combine my two creative loves: sketching people and short rhyming verse.