Drawing Skills: Part 4 Project 5 Ex 2 Groups of people

Groups of people

For this exercise I need to watch people and how they interact in different situations then I need to do some sketches to capture the moment.

I'm still in plaster so a bit limited to what I can comfortably access. I'm also a bit wary (and embarrassed) about sketching people when they are unaware of what I'm doing. I went to a large shopping centre and sat on a bench and tried to be unobtrusive.

I found that no one and nothing held still for long so my sketch was a composition of various people who were never actually together as a group. Calling them a group is not really accurate because they were either alone or in pairs and having little by way of dialogue.

I have scanned the sketch I made and this has cropped the image and I think it has made it more interesting. This is because the woman on the right is walking out of the picture. Out of the picture is a woman with a buggy and the friend of the young man on the left. To get the atmosphere of the busy shopping centre I really needed to have the people closer together but still individuals.

I used a chunky graphite stick (6B) in my A3 sketchbook.

The next group took my eye because the people were all very separate but all engaged in the same thing - waiting patiently at the bread counter in a local shop. There is an expectancy that I'm happy to have captured. As I type I can smell the fresh bread. I worked the sketch from a photo because there was nowhere for me to sit. I think it works better than the shopping centre sketch because I have people closer together; one behind the other. I used the same materials as last time. This took just a few minutes.

It is noticeable that I choose subjects looking away from me so I tried to change this by sketching this little group who were highly interactive. The little boy was the focus of attention and no one seemed to see me drawing although I was very quick.

This is almost completely dependent on the attitude and expressions of the adults and because my rendering of faces is very weak I don't think I will be pursuing this right now. However, in the future it has possibilities.

This sketch got pretty smudgy and messy because my hand was all over the place and I didn't protect the page but it gets the essence of what was happening.

Now I need to take one of my sketches and use it as an aide memoire to create a more finished image which includes colour. I need to develop some atmosphere as well and show the movement of the people It is like developing the sketches of Treswell Wood that I did way back in the winter; just different subject matter.

I chose the people in the bakers shop to make a more detailed drawing. The challenge of creating movement combined with perspective was more than I could resist (only joking). I wanted to make a picture that told a story. I used my smooth water colour paper, pencils and pastel crayons.

In order to get the whole picture I've had to photograph rather than scan. The colours don't look good I'm afraid. but it does indicate what I drew.