Urban Sketch of a metro passenger in Lille

Day One Hundred Three and One Hundred Four of Sketching People

Day 103 and 104 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. A couple of nights in Lille, but the only chance I got to sketch was waiting for trains or on a train.

Urban Sketch with Overlapping figures

We had a change of trains between Ghent and Lille, and ended up having time for a coffee at the Brussels Nord train station, when it’s coffee time, it’s sketch time.

The cafe was cramped and people were sitting on low, uncomfortable, stools. These two people weren’t sitting near each other, but I overlapped them in my sketch, which accurately reflected the close quarters of the seating area we were all crammed into. I chose to sketch these two women because they both had head coverings on for different reasons.

I fully embrace the option of artistic interpretation. Even though I manipulated the proximity of these two figures, and also adjusted the colour of some of the clothing to the complimentary pairing of red and green, this sketch still captures the feeling of this moment. We’re all crammed together in a small space, and it was a chilly day.

When I first started urban sketching people, I felt I had to accurately reflect what I saw, but if you do that you’ll end up with sketches that aren’t always pleasing to the eye. Now I believe that if you want to capture of reality – take a photo. But for all other representations – sketch what feels good.

Urban Sketching People on the Metro

On our second day in Lille we took the metro from Lille Flanders to the 1932 Art Deco swimming pool now operating as La Piscine Art Museum located in the suburb of Roubaix. It was about a 20 minute metro ride, so just enough time to do a couple of sketches. The ride was a bit rickety, but all the more reason to accept the need for wobbly lines.

We did a lot of wandering around in Lille, but it wasn’t exceptionally busy during our visit, and so I wasn’t inspired to sketch when we were sitting in cafes and watching there world go by. I really thought I’d do a lot more sketching during this trip, but tomorrow is a new day – and we’re going to Lille Airport, and that’s one of my favourite places to sketch. I’m looking forward to getting there a little earlier than we need to be, so that I have plenty of time to sit and sketch my fellow passengers.