Focussing on Urban Sketching

Jan 19, 2016
Another day spent practicing skills for urban sketching. I've been housebound with a cold so I couldn't get out and draw people. I came up with the idea of looking through my old sketch books and found that in 2007 when I was living in Bath, I did a lot of quick sketches of people walking. I used these as the reference and redrew them, adding colour. I was rather pleased with the chance to use my own sketches as references. I don't do that very often.
Sometimes we make assumptions about our work which isn't always true. I thought that these drawings were no good when I did then. It is frustrating trying to draw people as they walk by. You only manage to get a few lines down. But surprisingly, I was able to use these lines to add character. And some lines indicated a lot of character as I redrew the figures. I plan to add more people to future urban sketches and it helps to observe and record the many different characters that walk down the street.

Jan 20, 2016
Drawing people always makes me feel a great deal of empathy. Today I sat in my car, outside Saltspring Coffee and did quick drawings of people passing by. I was absolutely invisible, no-one looked at me. Again, it was challenging but I learnt yesterday to be patient and not expect too much for the field drawings. I know that I can use the scribbles to create figures. But the great thing, was all the little observations I made. How many younger people carry enormous backpacks, how older people shift their weight and are probably experiencing some pain. Next time I am going to pay more attention to the colours people are wearing, at the moment I am stuck on usually putting people in neutral colours but hopefully I see some variety that can spark my scenes. I am also interested in capturing some of the more colourful personalities (just in terms of how they present themselves in clothes and body language).  I also did two thumbnails on this page.