Sketching and drawing people can feel challenging to learn, but is incredibly rewarding to master. And ink and watercolors are the perfect medium to get out there, sketching, drawing and painting people, figures and crowds in any location!

This class will give you some fun and flexible rules, that can help you on your journey towards sketching accurate figures, but also experimenting and bringing your own creativity and skills into your art.

Proportions of the human body
The importance of simplification
Perspective and scale when dealing with crowds
How to apply colour
Mixing artistic or creative skin tones are just a few of the lessons that we'll cover in this class. All in a simple and effective way!

As an urban sketcher I'm always looking for ways that I can get out there, sketching, drawing and painting people in my urban scenes using my ink pens and watercolor paints.

Through my years of experimentation, both in my studio and outside on location, I've picked up a few ways of working, simple rules, that help me approach sketching people, no matter the style or situation.

I want to supply you with these easy techniques, so you can take these simple tips and tricks, and get out there sketching away with confidence.

What are the common challenges?

To understand the problem we're trying to solve, we first need to think about the most common mistakes artists like us make when tyring to sketch people. And I certainly include myself in this!

As you can see, too often we get stuck on details, details and more details. Neglecting our basics, like simple proportions, getting our character right, working out the scale or perspective, and adding artistic (rather than necessarily strictly 100% accurate) colours.

Art is all about SIMPLIFICATION

Even the simplest sketch can be effective. If we want something super realistic, we have photos, but if we want art we have the power the simplify, manipulate, and create our own 'artist's' impression.

As you can see, even a simple sketch can be really effective, and tell us everything we need and want to know about the subject.

Colour can be POWERFUL

Colours can also be powerful, in giving shape and character. But again, they can be confusing stumbling blocks that prevent us from moving forwards.

I'll show you in this class how I use watercolours to create representative and easy to use skin tones. Not focussing on overt realism, but letting my creativity do the work and capturing a scene easily, simply and effectively.

Why Use These Techniques?

For me, learning simple rules and techniques means you can be flexible, creative and quick.

The basics of ink sketching and watercolors are important, but when we have them as a foundation we can start to evolve our own style. Break those rules we set. And, of course, have a lot of fun.

What you'll get out of this course?

More than anything, I hope you'll have fun. But the other learning objectives will, of course, help you gain confidence and enjoyment in your sketching people with ink and watercolors.

This will include:

Understanding human proportions
Simplifying people
Avoiding excessive details
Knowing your horizon line
Easy to use colours
Feeling free to experiment!

Credits:

"Apero Hour" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Gail Hewitt

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