The guy in the middle seat on my flight

Day One Hundred Five of Sketching People

Day 105 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. Leaving Lille and flying to Faro, I captured people before and during our flight.

Urban Sketches Before Our Flight

We had time to kill before the airport shuttle bus arrived, so we sheltered in Lille Flanders train station to eat the lunch we’d bought at a local bakery. I scoffed my sandwich down, to make sure I had time to sketch this duo in the waiting area.

We got to Lille Airport three hours before departure time, and the place was deserted. I literally only had one passenger to sketch when we got there. And by the time more passengers arrived, I wasn’t in the mood to sketch. I don’t recall ever being in an airport so devoid of passengers before. There was only about one flight every ninety minutes. Obviously Lille isn’t a global flight hub.

This trip I’ve sketched more than my fair share of crossed legs, and now I’m no longer intimidated by them! This guy’s crossed legs turned out well.

I used bright colours on the suitcase, and this created the initial focal point, so I added a warm block of colour behind the figure to draw the eye back there.

I really wanted to get on board early because I was worried about having excess carry on, so I was the third person in the priority boarding line behind these two. I love this quick sketch. She’s completely out of proportion, but it doesn’t matter, it just makes this sketch more memorable. I dressed the man all in blue, so that the focal point was the woman’s flowery backpack.

I spelt “sketch” wrong in this little bit of poetic reportage, but didn’t want to correct it, because it would have been messy. I like the shape of the lettering and how it hugs the contours of the figure.

I’d like to experiment more with lettering and make it more intentional. All too often it’s an afterthought, with not much thought put into it.

Urban Sketches During Our Flight

I was sitting on an aisle seat, and my seat neighbour was wearing a very fluffy blue jumper. I was happy when he put his head down for a sleep. The jumper was fun to sketch, and I used random ink squiggles to represent the fluff, which is more realistic than trying to add too many.

I spent some time sketching the elbows sticking out into the aisle, which made an interesting collection of objects. This was really an exercise in loose watercolour and trying to leave highlights to depict where the light source hit the arm.

From my view of the aisle, I created a composition of the three people I could see enough of to sketch, but combined them into an overlapping sketch. What attracted me to sketching them, was that they were all wearing similar jeans. I added a block of French Ultramarine behind the figures to create a connection to the mass of blue at the bottom of the sketch.

It was a successful day’s sketching to round-out my trip to France and Belgium. I could have been more prolific, and I’d hoped to fill up my sketchbook, but as it stands, I have more pages to fill.