Observational drawing people

Cafe sketches today. (Including some silly mistakes.:)))

...the Observational Drawing, Urban Sketching and Sketchbookery of...

[By Don Low from Singapore] I have not posted here for so long. The last post was dated 4 Dec 2017. Anyway it’s good to be back, and henceforth, here are some recent sketches I made at different locations, mostly cafes, and food places. Due to a busy schedule for the first quarter of the […]

From a previous post, you can see how Hockney, with a few lines and gestures, can create a compelling sketch of another person. I had tried to do something similar with the 25 Second Sketches. I was a little bored one day during sketching class. Maybe "bored" isn't the right word; distracted may be better. I was distracted one day and thinking about the Hockney sketches that I had been looking at. I was a little envious of the ease by which he seems to be able to sketch people. As a result…

I often get emails from people who've seen my train drawings, asking for advice on how to go about sketching strangers in public. So, although I have probably said a lot of this before, in bits and bobs, I thought I'd put it all together, to maybe help give people the confidence to have a go. Firstly, I never, ever ask permission: if you do that, you're stuck drawing a 'portrait', which is a totally different thing; people are no longer natural, plus there's suddenly an expectation on you to…

[Guest post by André Wee in New York City] Scribbling and dotting into a sketchbook, while trying not to make a scene, has become an almost daily activity for me while commuting between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Over the past 2 months, I have started turning my train ride into my own ‘private’ drawing playground. […]

by Lynne Chapman, Sheffield, UK I’m still working hard on my book. I’m currently writing a chapter about the complications of sketching people, who are, of course, inclined to move about. It’s a problem. Even if they are pretending to be still, it never lasts. People are basically fidgets – you just have to read the […]

The bus waited a while before jolting off, so I got the first person drawn without the wobbly lines. The nearer person was alwys shifting position as she had a big art folio with her that got in people's way.