I’ve been working on drawing people for some months now. I don’t find it easy and I might easily persuade myself to draw something else but I am persisting with it. To try and improve the outcomes – in my eyes at least – I’ve been trying out some different techniques.

My default position to date has been a fairly realistic approach which relies on hoping my subjects are wearing sunglasses so I don’t have to draw tricky eyes and noses. Most of these drawings work, but the result is that my city appears to be occupied by shady characters at best and the random, deranged-looking person at worst.

Cyclists, pen and ink and wash, 23 June 2015

I’ve been tossing around some options for changing my approach to drawing people. I was much happier with the quick sketches I did at the beach earlier this year, where I used a quick wash of watercolour that I quickly sketched into. So over the past few weeks I’ve been working on this as a new approach to people sketching in cafes.

Trying a new approach, watercolour and graphite, 24 June 2015

I’ve mainly used a watercolour graphite pencil to add detail, I’m also trying using my pen and ink.

Busy Saturday, watercolour and pen and ink, 4 July 2015

I’ve also found that if I put down a light wash that I can also quickly add some shadows and contours with subsequent washes.

Man reading, watercolour and graphite, 27 June 2015

And while it might seem obvious it has also dawned on me that if I am working on a small piece of paper it is actually harder to get a well drawn face because I don’t have enough space to capture the details I want, duh!

There’s no doubt that I’m still better at capturing body shapes than faces,

The coffee queue, watercolour and grapjite, 11 July 2015

but I am keeping on with this approach.

Two people , quick sketch, watercolour and graphite, 11 July 2015