Urban Sketches of People at Heraklion Ferry Port

Day One Hundred and Fifty-Nine and Sixty of Sketching People

Continuing on with day 159 and 160 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour, with a collection of people sketches during our time in Heraklion.

Urban Sketching People in Heraklion

We did a bit two bus journeys on Crete to Malia and Rehymno, so I didn’t really leave myself a lot of time to sketch scenes from where we were based in Heraklion until

Urban Sketches of People in Heraklion Old Town (Day 159)

We were staying in a cute little studio apartment in Kornarou Square which was really central for exploring the Old Town. There was a small mosque building in the square and a good selection of cafes, so early one morning I grabbed my sketchbook and art materials and sat at one of the cafes to capture the scene. I used a limited colour palette, and was happy with the variety of cohesive greens I was able to mix for the foliage. If I was to do this again, I would have left the background layer of ink-only buildings out, and just had the street scene as a vignette, and adjusted the mid ground layer of foliage to create a sketch with an inverted V-shape. This would have created a stronger, and intentional-looking sketch.

I like the addition of the small figures in the sketch, because people sitting, talking, and drinking coffee was a key part of the this early morning scene. The focal point was the trio on the bench and I filled the windows areas in black so that these ink-line figures stood out to create a stark contrast, and draw the eye.

Urban Sketches of People at Heraklion Ferry Port (Day 160)

On our last day in Heraklion we spent hours at the ferry port waiting for our delayed ferry to arrive. I captured another trio of people of a bench, this time sitting in front of one of the ferries in port. As a travel memory, the current sketch works as an effective memory-capture. But the background and foreground are competing for attention. I could have created a more impactful sketch if one of those layers had been in colour, and the other in black and white.

Urban Sketch of People in front of a Ferry

Urban Sketch of People waiting for their Ferry

I used the sketching style of the focal point layer being in colour, and the background being in black and white in this sketch of people waiting at the ferry port. The more I experiment with this technique, the more I realise how much l like the look of this mix of sketching styles. I also like how the frills on the short of the main figure mirror the curls of one of the background figures. This wasn’t intentional, but I like how this technique of repetitive patterns creates a connection between different parts of the sketch.

Recently I’ve been in a quandary about whether I should focus on sketching in black and white, or whether I should continue focusing on switching with watercolour. I really like ink-only sketches, and ones with ink lines and some tonal shading, but I also love the impact of watercolour,. I thought I needed to do one OR the other, but looking back on this trip’s travel sketches, I’m realising how effective it is combine these different sketching techniques into a scene to help define the layers and focal point.

It’s as if I’ve been at a creative cross-roads and deciding with path I need to go down – colour OR monochromatic. And I’ve just realised I’ve just got to learn how to combine them together, instead of choosing between them. This way I get to have the best of both worlds. Now I just need to figure out how the different techniques can be used in harmony.

Urban Sketch of a fellow traveler we chatted with

We chatted with Thomas for a long time, and so it was only natural that I’d want to capture him in my travel journey. I added the Blue Star ticket office I visited to get my ticket printed, into the background of the sketch, to add an additional element to the story of this travel sketch rather than just capturing a sketch of a person. I’m realising that to create a memory-triggering travel journal it’s important to include key elements that are important to the moment, even if that means combining them into a manufactured scene.

Thomas and the Blue Star Ticket office were the two key elements in this scene, and the suitcase was a secondary element in the story. It needs to be there because it denotes Thomas as a traveler, but it didn’t need to have the same level of importance and be in colour. There are three layers in the scene:

• Background: Blue Star office
• Mid-ground: Suitcase
• Foreground: Thomas

At the moment they’re all in colour and there isn’t a lot of depth to the sketch, but I could have sketched the suitcase in line-one and that would have created a separation between the background and foreground. Or taken it a step further and sketched the background in ink line with tonal shading. Maybe even using a bit of spot colour to the blue star logo, and then using the same blue to add a splash of sky at the edges of the ticket office.

There’s a myriad of possibilities for combining sketching styles, and it’s great to take the opportunity of going through my travel sketches to decide how to refine my approach for future sketches.