Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday! Here's your weekly dose of inspiration to build a
creative habit one drawing at a time. Brought to you by sketchbook school hey
Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday! I love drawing people and sometimes people ask
me: what if someone doesn't like it when you draw them? Or do you ask permission
at all to draw someone? Well for that second question the answer is no. I
really don't don't ask permission. And the first question: most of the time
people don't even notice. So for example this page I just drew random people that
I saw around when I was sitting somewhere in a cafe and I just started
drawing and went from one person to another and everybody was really engaged
in their conversations and drinking their drinks and eating their food and
they really don't mind. And even if someone notices, most of the time they're
kind of fine with it or they see you looking at them and they notice that
but they don't really think anything about it
If I see that someone feels a little bit uncomfortable I just stop. So here's
for example... actually someone who was sitting at my table. This is a friend and
I just started drawing I don't even know, maybe I started with that glass
over here and I started drawing her and I started drawing things around her and
when I started drawing her glasses she saw that I was drawing her and she got
nervous so then I stopped and I actually think it's kind of cool because she is
now part of the foreground of the drawing. It's not like super cool, the
best drawing ever but I think it worked out fine and I kind of like the memory
of sitting at the table with her, and her being a little bit nervous about me
drawing her, so after that we just had an engaged conversation instead of me
staring at her trying to draw her. I got nervous too actually because I felt
like I should really get this right you know if she's nervous about this
I should really get her face right so to just let us both off the
hook I moved on and made a next drawing. Also you need to be a
little bit smart about it.Here's another example of two girls that were sitting
there chatting and they were really engaged in their own in their
conversation and they didn't mind they might have noticed I don't know. The
owner of the cafe actually noticed and she took a picture for her Instagram so
that's nice if that happens. But those girls they didn't mind at all
Here's another example of sitting at a table just drawing the people in front
of you quickly and then draw whatever is going on in
the background. And that way there's no pressure on it on anyone and still you
can draw people and practice drawing people. And those people were in a
kitchen and they're moving a lot so that was a good practice. Also you might
want to consider being quick and not too detailed so you're not like staring at
someone and back at your page and staring at someone and back at your page
again for like 15 minutes! You can do really quick lines as well. Over here
it's not really about the people but I included the people that
were there and it really gives an idea of what's going on
It was a kiosk and there was a guy standing just chatting with the person
who was selling stuff in that kiosk. Same here I didn't even
include the faces so that works too. Again, be a little bit smart about what you draw
and who you choose. If someone's really close by it might be a little bit
awkward but if people are standing in the street just chatting
you can totally draw them you know you need to be quick because you never know
when they will leave again but that's kind of the challenge. If you're
nervous about getting people's likeness you can also
consider doing just studies of their poses, maybe add a little bit of shading
and that way you will be very quick in your drawing and you will also capture
the essence and capture the movements in the posture of people so that's another
idea if you want to start drawing people. Don't go for a lot of detail but just
try and capture the curve of their of their backs the way their head is... you
know, are they are they a little bit slumped over or are they straight up
that really helps you to look at people and just filter out all the details. You
can always later on add details if you want to. Again make sure that you choose
the right people to draw and by that I mean try to find people who are sitting
chatting with each other they could actually be standing and chatting with
each other standing with their phone looking at their phone because then you
know that they will be there for a few minutes at least and also when they chat
with each other they might be moving and move their hands but they will be
repetitive movements so you can get back at it again and again. Also try to just
play around with proportion. You don't need to draw a whole person you can just
draw a face or maybe even just the foot
or a hand that really stands out to you and if someone leaves in the middle of your
drawing that's fine. Just find someone else that is kind of in the same
position. Finish your drawing - it doesn't have to be one person, especially if you
are in a cafe or a coffee shop or maybe on the tram stop or the bus stop. People
are leaving, moving, walking by... then you can also just consider to
combine people. I combined a few customers here because I wasn't quick
enough and that's fine. I mean it's like one customer's coat and then the other
customer's shoes and maybe a combination of hair in the face and features and
like that of maybe altogether three customers or four so this is all about
drawing on location during people who are actually there and you might be a
little bit nervous about that you might feel a little bit intimidated because
what if they notice, what if they come up to you? Well first of all they hardly
ever notice because they're busy in their own world, in their conversation,
watching whatever is happening on their smartphone, just in their own heads and
if they see you they will probably think you are writing something down in your
journal or something like that. However, there are people who notice it and then
you just need to be smart about it and see if they are annoyed or get
nervous about it just stop and go draw someone else. Sometimes you draw
someone and they're fine with it and then afterwards they come up to you. It
almost never happens but when it does they're always very happy about it
because I mean if someone draws you it's kind of an honor and you know it's kind
of a compliment you were interesting enough to draw so they also want to see
the results and then you will be apologizing that it doesn't look like them
and they are like no it's fantastic. Every time this has happened to me that
people came to me they were like this is so cool, and I don't mind that it doesn't
look like me, why are you doing this, how are you doing this, I used to draw as
wel, and then a whole conversation comes up about drawing, sketching, and the fun
of making art. So keep that in mind as well. People are very friendly about it
and you know, it's it's pretty cool to see an artist at work so that's
something to keep in mind if you want to draw on location. But if you're still a
little bit scared to do so but you do want to draw people
well, draw from the newspaper or from TV. Great excuse to watch a lot of Netflix
shows and to try different art tools, study shadows and features. And then also
there's always the selfie. So I hope these tips help and I hope you will be
drawing people, because it's so much fun! It's a fantastic exercise, great practice
and you'll never know what kind of people you actually meet and what kind
of conversations you will have through it. So have fun in your sketchbook, take
it out with you whenever you can. Start just drawing postures and poses and from
there on go on and go into detail and be a little bit courageous and just do it
Have fun.