10 Tips for How to Sketch People

Cheers Boston!
(sketching fellow travellers at Logan Airport, Boston, USA September 2006)
8" x 10", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Drawing and sketching people is an invaluable way of developing a wide range of artistic skills. 

I've been drawing people for very many years - family, friends, people in cafes and restaurants, life class models - and other artists. People often tell me how much they like the sketches I make of people I come across on my travels with a sketchbook - which I find a bit odd as most rarely have faces!

Anyway, I've decided the time has come to write a bit more about sketching people. So this blog post is about 10 tips on how to sketch people – or at least my understanding of how I sketch people.

This post is also a condensed version of an article I'm drafting - and this time I'm aiming to create a priced publication (once I've sorted out the mechanics!). To that end I'm looking for 10 volunteers to form a review panel for this latest Making A Mark Publication. More about this at the end!

First some basics - then the top tips.  The basics come from Sketching for Real - Introduction. The sketches throughout the post include some which have been posted on this blog before and some which are new to the blog.

What is a sketch?

A sketch, in art terms, can be:

• a way of practising and refining your skills in drawing and mark marking
• an exploratory drawing – exploring how something works/might work
• a quick drawing – e.g. sketching in public tends to be time-limited rather than open-ended
• a rough description – it’s OK if they lack detail; don’t fill the page or are not even completed
• a record of something you’ve seen
• a record of one or more aspects of something you want to develop into a painting e.g. a colour study
• a preliminary study – for a later painting (done before you start to check how your painting will work rather than as an underdrawing on your final support)

A sketch may be an imaginative or a creative interpretation of reference material – but it does not involve meticulous copying of a reference photo.

Very often a sketch is a study of a subject that the artist can see – and consequently involves working and drawing from life.

Why sketch?

Sketching broadens and enhances your basic skill base.

As you practice and progress, sketching helps you to:

• Develop your freehand drawing, mark making and observational skills
• Draw something everyday – an exercise which will bring fluency and confidence to your drawing
• Get a better record of the colours and tones you see
• Practice how to crop a scene and compose a picture
• Develop finished artwork without relying totally on a reference photo

So now I've identified what a sketch is and why sketching can be a good habit to acquire, we'll look at the 10 tips for how to sketch people.

10 Tips for How to Sketch People

These tips are NOT of the 'get rich quick' variety. They're essentially principles which make much more sense through application. However the real benefits really only come when they become ingrained habits through lots of practice.

#1. Take a class in life drawing!

This is my #1 top tip because this one tip produces the most benefit in terms of learning how to look, understanding how the human body works and how to draw figurative shapes and values. If you want to know more I've got a guide about Life drawing and Life Class which can be downloaded for free from my website.

#2. Find a place where people linger

There's no point in making life difficult for yourself. Sketching people who are settled or who move only a little or slowly makes sketching people a lot easier.

The Big Draw, Covent Garden 2007
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Here are some suggestions:

• cafes, bars and restaurants,
• waiting rooms of any kind
• train stations and airports
• art galleries
• people watching an event
• parks and places where people sit in the sun
• artists sketching/drawing/painting plein air or in studios

# 3. People ALWAYS move - so learn to draw FAST!

There's no way of getting round this one! Tips on how to sketch quickly can be found in Sketching for Real: Assignment 1 - So you want to learn how to sketch...... Also learn to be philosophical about the fact that you'll have a lot of "starts" which don't go anywhere in your sketchbook. My rule of thumb is I lose about 25% of the sketches I start - and I draw very fast!

#4. Sit in one place and construct a scene

So - you've accepted that people will come and go so and you've learned how to sketch quickly. You still need a strategy for how to deal with the comings and goings. My own personal strategy is to sit in one place and construct a scene around a pivotal person.

Private View, RSPP 2007
8"x10" pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I try and select somebody who looks interesting and as if they might stay still long enough for me to get the bare essentials down - size, shapes, relationship with the background and, in particular, the horizontals and verticals. I then construct the scene around that person as people come and go. They don't all have to be there at the same time!

Remember you are sketching and not drawing a portrait. I've noticed a tendency for people who are starting to sketch to just sketch individuals as isolated objects and for them to ignore the backgrounds and context altogether. The next three tips are about addressing this.

#5. Draw shapes and values not detail

Squint to see values. Start by working out the rough size and shape of the big shapes that you can see - in value terms. You can then work within these - again using value shapes. Using line to describe the edge of some aspect of detail can then be surprisingly effective if most of the drawing is value shapes due to the contrast between the two. I always enjoy sketching the 'squiggley' bits of folds in clothing.

Diners at the Club Gascon
8"x10", pencil in Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

#6. Make connections

Here are some of the connections you can make

• look for connections between people in terms of relationships and body language
• identify the big shape that is the group of people. If you can't see an edge then don't draw it.
• join up shapes which are the same value e.g. connect shapes associated with an individual to the background if they are the same value
• make the connections between different zones more obvious. Overlap figures and objects to demonstrate who is in the foreground, the middle ground and background.

#7. Remember proportions

Use the background to help with scale. Sight size and measure proportions accurately if you have the time If you don't, then choose one line to act as a baseline for keeping everything in proportion. I always try and find a vertical because I have a tendency to have leaning verticals and it acts as a check.

'S' painting in Tuscany
pen and sepia ink in sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

#8. Seek out repetition

People who repeat movements are good subjects to draw. You have to work out what the sequence is and how often it repeats. Artists very often make wonderful models for learning how to draw people who are animated as most tend to have a neat and repetitive routine of movements when drawing or painting. The painter in the above sketch had two distinct patterns of movements. I watched for a while and decided which one gave maximum sketching time.

#9. Avoid drawing faces and feet!

If you draw a likeness, then you should really obtain a model release. Practice likenesses with family and people you know rather than with strangers. Squint when you look at faces and then only draw what you can see - which will be values. You'll be surprised at how little detail there is.

Feet are often drawn bigger than they actually are. Check the feet in the sketch below - would you have drawn them this small?

Figures in the Piazza San Marco, 
Venice - sketched from Quadri's
pen and sepia ink
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

#10. This is not an exercise in portraiture

It's worth reiterating that you need to remember that you are sketching and not drawing a portrait or trying to be wholly accurate.

Think of yourself as a visual journalist, there to record what you see - when you squint! Be discriminating - you don't need to draw everything. A lot of people's sketches are not complete.

If you get a good vantage point, try drawing lots of little people on one sheet of paper. Drawing small is always interesting as you have to work out what are the important characteristics to keep which mean they don't all look like stick men or the same. You can also change the colour of clothing to make sketches better!

A review group

I'm currently drafting a guide to sketching people. This will expand upon the tips given in this post and the intention is that it will become a priced publication.

I'm looking for 10 volunteers to help me by becoming a review group. It goes without saying that all volunteers will receive a free copy of both the draft and the final version! It doesn't matter how much experience you have of either sketching or drawing people as I'm interested in the views of people with a range of backgrounds.

I'd like to work with at least some of the people who comment frequently on this blog - you know who you are! I'm probably going to invite a few people - but if you're interested please say so below and I'll get back to you. Alternatively if you'd rather e-mail me you can find my contact details in the right hand column.

Links

• Pastels and Pencils
• Drawing People
• Travels with a sketchbook
• Interiors
• Making A Mark Publications
• A Making A Mark Guide: Life Drawing and Life Class
• Sketching for Real - a class with assignments