Drawing people in a sketchbook

Looking ahead to life without restrictions, Kevin Scully shares his tips for sketching people, whether stationary or on the move, with advice on materials and techniques to use

Looking ahead to life without restrictions, Kevin Scully shares his tips for sketching people, whether stationary or on the move, with advice on materials and techniques to use

When drawing people, there is no great need to create an exact likeness, partly because that person will probably never see the drawing, but also because you should be attempting an overall suggestion of their essential character, not a true likeness. You might not even need to draw any features at all. For instance, if someone is wearing a very large hat and their face is in shadow, simply drawing the hat and a dark shape for their face will capture the overall first impression of that person.

Make a start

If you are not comfortable with drawing people on the move, begin with some that are going to be stationary for some time, such as in a library or on a longdistance train. Take a few moments to study them. If they are doing something repetitive, you can decide which movement or gesture will make the most interesting image, and base your drawing on it, drawing it with a little more detail each time that pose is adopted.

Public transport is another place where you will find convenient models, although some may only be going short distances. Waiting rooms of any description are good. Some people may be relaxed, others may be agitated; some may be excited and some may be bored; some may be sitting and some

standing. People stand in a number of ways and their uniqueness is difficult to capture but can be hinted at by means of exaggeration.

In cafés, restaurants and pubs, people will be a bit more animated, particularly it they are in groups. If you choose a person who is sideways-on or turned slightly away from you, they are less likely to see you. It’s impossible to hide completely, but the majority of people don’t normally mind. Some may even come over to ask you what you’re doing. When sketching in a country that doesn’t have a tradition of artists drawing outside, you will almost certainly attract the attention of a few onlookers, particularly children and quite often one or more of your audience will ask you to draw them.

Develop a shorthand

Sometimes you have to draw figures very quickly as the person you’re

Engrossed in his painting, this artist retained the same position long enough to allow me to include a reasonable amount of detail after I had established the construction lines of his posture and movement. Drawn with an HB pencil

This group of figures was drawn with a Derwent 8B water-soluble pencil; tonal variation was added by dissolving some of the water-soluble graphite with a brush dipped in water

By alternating the directional shading in this drawing, an immediate sense of perspective was achieved without resorting to any other means. Drawn with a 2B pencil, a combination of blank spaces and minimal detail allows the viewer to fill in some of the elements themselves

These two characters were drawn with a Unipin .05 fine line pen. Some colour was added later with Winsor & Newton ProMarkers

Using a 2B pencil, this group of people was drawn at speed. The predominantly vertical shading, and the lines beneath each figure, suggest reflections on a wet day. The fluted lamppost was drawn using the edge of a pencil

A simple contour drawing with no shading, executed in just a few minutes with an HB pencil

This lady was seated at a café table, drawing someone else while I was drawing her. Her profile was distinctive enough to capture the essence of her concentration and posture. Drawn with an HB pencil