The aim of this task was to introduce me to observing the figure. Rather than return to the route from my earlier exercises, I decided to seek out different situations as I was going about activities through the week.
Single Figure
For this section, I started by doing some drawing whilst out on a family trip to Winchester. My son is a familiar face, and I tried to capture him while grabbing a quick breakfast.
I had to work quickly, as he's not one to sit still! These were good to get me going, but I think I was doing them a little absent-mindedly. I was mainly trying to concentrate with a lot of noise around me, so I totally forgot about the exercise's prompt to "... think about the process of choosing adjectives and focus on what you are saying about your subject, or what features are interesting to you."
"... think about the process of choosing adjectives and focus on what you are saying about your subject, or what features are interesting to you."
Later on, we stopped at a cafe for a hot drink and a well-deserved rest for our feet. We decided to sit outside as we were fortunate enough to enjoy a crisp clear day. We were sat right in the low winter sun, so were surprisingly warm. There were lots of people with a similar idea, so I had lots of opportunities around me to practice capturing the figure. Next to our table was a couple speaking animatedly. The gentleman was backlit with the sun, so I decided to try and sketch and paint him.
I am really pleased with this more involved sketch, and whilst not conscious of it, I did notice more about him, and adjectives that describe his gestures and bearing. I tried to capture the people on nearby tables too, to try and give the page a sense of setting and context. It's the first time I have painted anything so strongly backlit, so wanted to see if I could convey the quality of the light. While we were are lunch I tried to sketch my son as he tackled his first dim sum. It was really funny because he expected them to look like the ones he had seen in one of his favourite movies and was surprised by the variety of the steam dumplings in front oh him!
Crowds and Activities
Drawing groups and crowds made me a lot more apprehensive. Before going out I decided to take some guidance and inspiration from a book dealing with painting people quickly [1]. Whilst a useful book, I can't say that my confidence improved very much.
I started whilst on the same day out with the family drawing the McDonald's where I had first drawn my son.
I tried to get a sense of the location and the people. In somewhere like McDonald's people tend to come and go quite regularly, so it was a challenge to try and capture people quickly. The man with the flat cap actually appeared near the end of the drawing, and luckily that area was still open on the page, so I was able to incorporate him. The surroundings are really colourful, so I also took a reference photo. But when I got home I decided to leave the sketch as-is, as I thought that colour would detract from the composition.
Whilst at the cafe later I also tried to capture other people in the same area.
I tried to be selective with what I decided to capture. The chairs, in particular, I tried to capture the essence of, rather than the details. To place the cafe scene, I decided to paint the cathedral grounds in the background, and I really like how looks and indistinct they are. It almost gives the sense of a blurred background, which helps to focus the eye to the foreground (I hope!)
Later we had our lunch at DimT. I took inspiration from the journey exercise in the last section and took home ephemera from our lunch. I didn't want to sit there drawing as I wanted to be present for my family, so after doing a sketch of my son I took some reference photos. When I got home I tried to capture a sense of the place and used the opportunity to try out just using my brush pen and then used watercolour to see what kind of effect I could create. I am really happy with the juxtaposition of the blue and orange elements and it really has a feel for the colourful Oriental decor.
I felt that I hadn't had enough opportunity to sketch a more challenging crowd, so I decided to take a trip on my lunch break to a viewpoint near to where my client's offices are. Luckily, it seemed to be a lunchtime hotspot, with a popular food truck and ice cream van nearby. I took the opportunity to sketch the people ordering and eating their lunches.
It was a real challenge trying to capture people as they moved and went around their business. IT made keeping to scale difficult, but I tried to make selective choices on shape and gesture, and worry less about the size and accuracy. I wanted to capture text off of the van, and realised on both occasions I was writing too big, the text just didn't fit! I just went with it anyway, as it still felt like it created a sense of place. I do feel like these images would benefit from some colour. Luckily, I took some more reference photos so I can go back to these and add some details in colour.
One of the hardest aspects was capturing the huge flocks of seagulls and crows that were there. They would constantly be vying for scraps; or flying away with a disturbance only to circle back and land again. I tried to capture them in the image as they are a big part of the scene but concentrated on just a core group to give a sense of place without having to do too much literal detail. I tried to capture them in different poses. The flying birds were particularly challenging, so I ended up making very gestural marks to represent them, but I think they actually work well.
This challenge has been fun, informative and challenging. I've found that I am really comfortable doing public sketches, and the more I use pen loosely for this kind of work, the more I realise how intuitive it is for me to do so. I'm looking forward to doing more sketches like these and seeing how my choices change when I have much more time to give to the scene.
Speaking of which, I couldn't resist trying to capture the amazing panorama set out in front of me. Taking inspiration from Butch Belair in my earlier studies, I sat in my car and sketched the scene in front of me. There was so much information to capture, so I found it a really useful exercise in making selections of what to include, or not!
References
Soan, H. (2017). Learn to paint people quickly. 7th ed. London: Batsford.
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