Sketching Workshops: Capturing People

My recent afternoon sketching workshop, People at Play, was completely different to the morning's session on sketching architecture. This time, I was sharing techniques for sketching people, out and about in public.

We met at Sheffield's Botanical Gardens. It's a gorgeous, big park, where lots and lots of people hang out on the grass on a sunny Saturday. Imagine how relieved I was then, that it was not just dry (well, mostly), but also hot. We started with a picnic, while people gradually arrived and watched, in amazement, as a huge group of oddly dressed-up people milled about really close by. One of our number went to ask what it was all about and, with INCREDIBLE good fortune, I had picked the same afternoon as the Sheffield Steampunk Society picnic. Fantastic for sketching!

We started with an easy exercise: using contour drawing to loosen up our arms. This is also a great way to sketch very, very quickly - perfect for capturing people who might move at any moment.

Next, I shared a technique that was shown to me some years ago by Inma Serrano: using just one, at most two colours, to get down very simple shapes in watercolour, finished off with line. This is so speedy to do, especially if you pre-mix a couple of colours. You need to look for the key angles and shapes - the V of the legs, arms in the air, a bent back etc. You can get the gist in 15 seconds.

Then I did a demonstration, to show how, with 5 minutes, rather than 1, you can 'draw' with watercolour, but in a very simple way, not bothering with detail, just capturing shapes again. The trick with people-sketching, is to learn which bits of information are crucial to get down and which you only need if you have time before they move. You can add different coloured line-work, just to define things here and there, but really quickly, keeping 2 or 3 pencils ready at hand, adding as little as you can get away with.

Everybody did really well and worked really hard. The steampunk people loved being drawn and kept coming over to have a look.

I finished with another demonstration, as I wanted to show people how, if I know I have more like 20 minutes to spend, for instance on a train, or sketching friends, I might use my Inktense watercolour pencils to create something more detailed.

Since we couldn't guarantee any of the members of the public would keep still for long enough, someone's friend sat for me. Which isn't strictly speaking urban sketching, but was the best way for the demo. As you can see, I create the whole thing in line first and only add water with a waterbrush at the end.

I don't run sketching workshops very often but, as I mentioned last time, there is another day coming up very soon, on September 16th. It's all part of my new residency at Orchard Square. The morning is for beginners and is also suitable for children, the afternoon is for adults with at least a little previous sketching experience.

Email me if you want to book a place on either of these workshops. They are almost full, so be quick! 

I'll also be doing and an informal talk about my sketching and textiles work and the ways in which they are linked. If you would like to find out more about this,  or future events, you can join my new mailing list.

In the meantime, you might be interested in some of my other top tips on sketching people or, if you've not seen it already, there's always my book.

I am in Brazil!

Okay, I'm betting that got your attention, eh?

Unfortunately, it's not quite literal - I am not actually in Brazil, not in person. I have indeed just come back from some exciting travelling (more of that next time, with lots of pictures...), but this time it is not me, but my Sketching People book which is in Brazil.

It is a lovely new foreign edition, translated into Portuguese. This is the new cover. I had an email a couple of days ago from Pedro, the Director of my new publisher, GG Brasil, to say that it has just published.

So, if you live in Brazil, or speak Portuguese, you can now get your own copy. I really hope you enjoy it. I have had some truly lovely feedback so far from readers and am delighted that it seems to be a real help to people.

Sketching People: Publication Day!!!

Yep, today is the official publication day for my new book Sketching People: an Urban Sketcher's Guide. Hurrah!

So, if you have pre-ordered a copy, it should be with you today or tomorrow. If this is the first you have heard about it (though that would be hard, the way I have been banging on about it...), you can read all about it and see lots of sample pages here.

Copies can be ordered from any bookshop or through Amazon. 

If you are in the US, your co-edition isn't quite published yet, I'm afraid, but you only have to wait another 3 weeks. This is where you pre-order the American edition.

Happy sketching everyone! Don't forget to leave me some lovely reviews on Amazon :-)

Sketching People: My Book is Here!

The advance copies of my urban sketching book just arrived - hurrah! They should have been here a couple of weeks earlier it turns out, but they went astray in the mail and the publisher didn't realise I hadn't had them. 

It's been a bit fraught with technical hitches to be honest because, when they resent my package this week, someone put in the American edition and one by a Singapore publisher (below), but left out the UK one (above). Never mind - they look gorgeous and glossy and I am very pleased. The contents on the inside of the different editions are more or less the same, it's just odd words and grammatical variations - it's mainly the covers which look different.

It's lovely to see how all the content looks, in it's proper form. I spent so long putting it all together and now here it is, looking like a real book! 

I thought I'd take some snaps to give you a sneak preview, though you probably have a pretty good idea by now, since I've talked about it in progress often enough (hit the Sketching People label on the right, if you're interested). 

There a section which looks at art materials, with a specific eye on how you choose tools which are appropriate to the problems of drawing people out on location:

I look at how you choose your subject, which is hugely important. There are some locations and activities which are virtually impossible, but plenty of others which make things a lot easier for you, especially if you are cutting your teeth:

Then there are the different possible angles to tackle. I would rarely advise drawing people front-on. It's much more interesting and far easier on the whole, to tackle them in profile or in three-quarter view, particularly when you are concentrating on faces:

I write a fair bit on techniques to deal with the fact that people move about a lot, which is of course one of the main things which makes them so tricky. I can't stress enough the benefits of trying contour drawing, both for warming up your arm and eye and for tackling your subject as swiftly as possible:

Plus another technique, handy particularly if you are drawing groups of people or people passing by, is using composites - sketches made up of a little of one person and a bit of another, with maybe the head of someone else again!

There is a lot more too, of course. I tried to think of everything I know. It's hard when you have been doing something for so very many years. It all becomes second-nature. Writing the book has been really interesting, because it has helped to make me analyse what I know. Which has actually really helped for when I am teaching workshops, like the ones I am doing at the moment for the Morgan Centre as part of my Artist-in-Residence year, and of course the work I do with Urban Sketchers.

'Sketching People': Checking the Colour Proofs

I received a package from my publisher just the other day, with some very exciting contents...

It was the colour proofs of my Sketching People book. 

I seem to be juggling lots of different projects at the same time right now, but the urban sketching book is at least one which is very nearly finished. 

The colour proofs are when you finally get to see what it's going to look like. Even though I've been very hands-on throughout the progress, I've been dealing with it in batches, so never had the chance to look at it as a complete project. Plus I'd never seen the final design of many of the spreads, so I couldn't wait to get a look. 

By this stage, all the design has been finalised, all the text is in place, exactly as it will look, and all the images, whether photos or sketches, are in their final positions on the spreads. It was lovely to see everything looking gorgeous! 

But I wasn't just sent them to admire: my job was to go through the whole thing with a fine tooth-comb, checking it over and making any final notes about alterations that needed making, or errors I noticed. That meant reading the entire book, which took a while, as you can imagine. 

There were actually lots of little things I picked up, both to do with images and text: I made two pages of notes!

One slight complication was that this was the US version - the text has been Americanised throughout, which does not just involve changes to words, but also some big changes to punctuation. I was surprised to discover for example, that in the US, a colon is followed by a capital letter! There were also many differences over where comas are used. 

The text will be re-Anglicised after the proofs have been approved, which means Quarto employing someone to make all the changes: apparently less complex than trying to re-instate my original text. All a bit odd, but everything is, as usual, very US-led. That's where the biggest market for the book will be, despite it originating in the UK.

The biggest single issue I picked up, was the placement of annotation arrows: used to point to where I am making specific comments about particular elements of a sketch. Many of them were not quite pointing to the right place, because my designer didn't always quite understand where I was referring to.

All sorted now though. I am very pleased with how it looks. The quality of the colour is great and the design really sets everything off beautifully (thanks Moira!).

I'm told that it should be ready for publication sometimes around the end of February. You can pre-order already, but don't worry - I will definitely be letting you know when it's ready.

Final Work on my Sketching People Book

Last week I officially finished work on my urban sketching book. Last Monday, my editor sent me a print-out (just done on their office printer) of how it looks so far. This was for us to go through together, over the phone, ironing out any remaining issues.

This is the first time I have seen the design of certain elements, like the title page and contents above. I just chose images, then the fairies turned them into something lovely! I am very pleased with how the chapter headers are all looking too. These were the images I chose when I was at the meeting down in London, but the graphics has now been fine-tuned and they are looking really punchy:

There are still the colour proofs to check, which are due in 2 or 3 weeks, and my final job will be to check over the re-anglicised version of the text, in just over a month. My English text has already been Americanised for the Barron's edition. All the main proofing and checking is done on this version, then it is turned back again to UK English. At which stage, I will quickly run my eye over things, to make sure the punctuation fits with the meaning I want to get across (control freak...).

As far as the real work is concerned though, I finished it off on Saturday. Hurrah! 

Earlier in the week, I went though my print-out, troubleshooting remaining anomalies and marking it up in red. I was looking at the image placement and graphics, re-reading through my text and looking at 'holes'. The holes were problems with guest images - people whose work I had selected, but who could not be contacted, or couldn't find the sketchbook the work was in. 

I was on the phone to my editor for nearly 2 hours last Wednesday afternoon, going through the whole book, pointing up things I felt still needed tweaking and talking through any last-minute text which needed writing to fit the new, replacement guest images we were choosing to fill the holes. Then on Saturday, I spent the day doing all the bits and pieces of final work.

The design team did a great job on the kit-list page, don't you think? Remember when I was talking about it all being photographed? My print-out is only A3, but the actual book is larger, so I can't wait to see the full-size proofs, where it will be all glossy and gorgeous too!

US Feedback for my Sketching Book

While I was away having my adventures in Denver, my Sketching People book went off to our US publisher, Barron's, for a pre-publication evaluation. It's standard procedure apparently. They have a list of questions they check against, to decide if they think the book needs any changes before they publish it in the States. 

The check-points cover quite fundamental quality issues. They include questions like:

Is the writing style, reading level, interest level, and level of detail appropriate for the intended audience?

What is the general quality of scholarship and accuracy of the text? 

Is the coverage of topics thorough and well balanced?

Under each question, the evaluator at Barron's writes a paragraph or two of feedback, before sending the report back to Quarto in the UK. Any problems then come back to me, via my editor, and changes need to be made to fit in with their requirements. 

I got the email this morning from my editor at Quarto. She was so delighted, she sent me a copy of the Barron's evaluation report. 

Turns out, they loved it. We passed with flying colours - no changes at all. The opinion was that everything was extremely clear, without being overly technical and that I had done 'an excellent job of offering many different approaches and techniques' with 'exactly the details that will help and inspire readers to draw people in urban settings', covering my subject 'well and completely'. 

They believe my audience will be find it a 'lively and colourful read'. Best of all was in the summing up at the end, where it says: 'I am ...very familiar with all of the books about onsite drawing that have been published in recent years. "Sketching People" is one of the best books on the subject of urban sketching that I have seen... I am sure (it) will be popular and will sell well.'

That's such a wonderful vote of confidence, especially from somebody as all-powerful and in-the-know as Barron's. Let's hope that you guys, my 'gentle readers' think the same.

The only bit of bad news is that, because Quarto got very behind with things, they have changed the publication date. Instead of being ready in time for Christmas, Sketching People is now not going to appear until around February. Oh well, something to brighten those long, winter evenings...

Planning Meeting: Chapter Headers

While I was in London with the publisher of my Sketching People book, we sorted out various other jobs, as well as photographing all the demos I showed you last time. 

One task I had deliberately left until the end was selecting images to use for the chapter headers. Most of the pages in the book have 6 - 8 sketches per spread, but at the start of each chapter, I can have one sketch taking up a whole spread. 

I'd created a shortlist and emailed it down in advance. It was tricky, because only landscape or square format sketches would work across the double-page spread, but an awful lot of my sketches are portrait format. Moira, my designer, printed my various suggestions out on mock layouts, to see how different possibilities might look:

It was a difficult decision, but easier with other people's input. In the end, none of the ones in the photo above made the grade. You'll have to wait and see what I chose!

There was also another photography job to get sorted. One early section of the book looks at which art materials are most suitable for location-sketching and give tips for travelling light. So, I took all my gear with me and Phil took photos of every single item in my sketching kit. I love this picture of my grubby paint palette:

It feels good to have such a monster project wrestled into submission.

Portrait outside Pentonville Prison

I need a photo of me to go in my sketching book: I always think it's more friendly to be able to see the person who is 'talking' to you in a book of this kind. I have loads of publicity shots (I've never been a shrinking violet), but the more perceptive amongst you might have noticed that I changed my hairstyle about a year ago: my spikes have given way to a quiff. Which means older photos are not so good. 

So, while I was visiting my publisher, all kitted out in my best frock and with photographer Phil Wilkins on hand, I suggested we take a picture of me 'in action' with my sketchbook. I thought we would do something in the street, but my designer thought the local cafe, where we had just had our lunch, might be fun.

Quarto's offices are 100 yards from Pentonville Prison and the cafe is literally opposite the prison's main gate, which is why it's called the Breakout:

We went just before closing, so we wouldn't be disturbing any punters, and I sat at a table in the window on the far right of this photo. We shot loads of subtle variations on the theme. We tried a serious 'I'm concentrating on sketching' pose:

...and an 'I'm just sketching whatever is outside this window' one:

We also of course did the standard 'smiling at the camera' pose:

At one point a man came rushing in from the street, said: 'Don't take my picture, I just escaped!' then ran off again.

I am not sure yet which picture we are going to use in the book. They are all nice (thanks Phil), but I think the last one is the most friendly and welcoming. What do you think?

Photographed in Action: a Trip to London

As regular readers will know, I am very close now to the deadline for my book, the full title of which is now decided: Sketching People, an Urban Sketchers Manual for Drawing Figures and Faces.  All the scans from my archive of sketchbooks are done, as well as various additional drawings, created specifically for the book (like for how to draw hands and using colour as a framework instead of pencil). 

But one BIG ELEMENT has been waiting until the end... the photographed sequences. These are needed to show how sketches are built up: 

But that's really not something that can easily be done at home, so I took the train down to London and spent two days with my publisher and with Phil Wilkins, a freelance photographer. 

To better explain how I draw different elements of people and how I tackle specific tricky situations, we wanted to show my sketches in stages. But for my style of working, where a sketch is done very fast, stopping at various stages was a problem. Which is why we got Phil to stand behind me, capturing the work in progress. 

I was rather excited and looking forward to the adventure, but also a bit nervous: I wasn't sure how well I would perform under that kind of pressure. 

There was a bit of a spanner in the works too - a tube strike. This meant we had no models, so had to press-gang various people from the surrounding offices to come and sit for me. We started off by drawing the Senior Editor Kate. She was very unsure about the whole thing, but reassured when she saw it was just her hair I was focussing on:

I did someone's ear, as you can see at the top, then someone else's nose and mouth. We scoured the building for someone glam enough to be wearing high heels, then got her to clamber up on a table so I could draw her legs and feet:

The most scary sketch I had to do was left to day 2: to demonstrate a technique for drawing movement, by superimposing different elements over the top of one another. I thought a violinist would be a good option. Luckily, my editor Lily could play. Unluckily, the only violin we could lay our hands on was a child's one which had been gathering dust in someone's attic, so it's slightly smaller than it should be in the sketches. Hey ho. Probably nobody but another violinist would notice.

Once again, Phil set up over my shoulder so he could take pictures all the way through, from first marks to finished drawing. I did two different versions, first with my Koh-i-Noor rainbow pencil, so Lily ended up with lots of arms:

Then I tried again with my Inktense pencils, using different colours for the different overlaid arms. I think it's this one I like best as it's a more interesting teaching technique:

We finished off with a long pose. I wanted to do something on how to plan out a more complex situation, where you have more than one characters and a bit of background. We mocked up a meeting with Lily and one of the interns. I sketched a little thumbnail first, to plan the composition, which Phil photographed for the book, then I used this plan to create an under-drawing in my sketchbook, in lilac coloured pencil, before beginning in ink with my trusty Sailor pen:

Every minute or so I paused for a photo. It was really quite an odd way to sketch! 

Once the line drawing was complete, I used watercolour to pull out the light and shade and give splashes of colour. It's not the way that I would normally work, but it's a good technique to demonstrate for beginners and so something that needed to be covered in the book:

The final sketch is not as exciting as I personally like - it's interesting how the more formalised approach made it harder for me to be expressive - but it will do the job. I gave it as a present to the intern, as a reminder of her time at Quarto, as she is heading home to new Zealand shortly. I also gave individuals the pictures of their ears, noses and legs etc.

We had some other jobs to do while I was in London, bit I'll talk about them next time, or we'll be here forever. See you in a few days...