4 Tips For Sketching People

Lately, I have been sketching my family. They're the ones you're most likely to get enough time to do: in the last video, sketching outside a café, I caught people in under a minute each, but in these ones I had much longer, and it was very much a leisure activity...a wonderful one.

I wrote an article for my blog on my website in which I broke down the elements I think about when I am sketching, and I thought they might be useful in a YouTube video because I had a bit of footage of the sketching in progress.

There’s something I’d like to talk about that might be a bit…underemphasised. Learning to draw is easy. Learning to draw well isn’t easy, and isn’t fast (no matter what some of the YouTube thumbnails will have you believe). But it’s worth the effort, and I have faith in you as an intelligent human with eyes, and taste, that you can learn anything you want to, and that it will be beautiful. (I’m starting to read a book on simple university-level physics, just because I want to learn more about how stuff works. And I haven’t darkened a science lecture theatre in thirty years. It’ll be a struggle…but worth it.) I get a bit impatient when I hear “You don’t need to be able to draw to make art” - of course you don’t. But if you want to draw people in a way that captures the true essence of their character (as opposed to expressing your spirit as the artist) then yes, you do need to learn to draw.

My husband commented that this video is a bit long; he’s probably right, but learning to draw people involves a lot of moving parts, and it’s not an easy thing to master - so I thought if I reiterated the four elements that are the subject of this tutorial, they’d be more likely to sink in. Besides, what’s fifteen minutes compared to the hours you’ll be putting in as a people sketcher?

So this is just a start - I will talk more about light and contrast, and, to some extent, composition (you don't always get much choice in that when you are sketching people who haven't deliberately sat for you) but there's something to be learned from that too.

If you enjoy this video, and you think you could learn from my approach to drawing and painting, then I advise you to come to my classes. I offer a 90-minute live session once a week, but there are short courses every now and then. These are also live and recorded to suit your own time availability. The next one is for beginners and runs 21st to 25th August 2023, for two hours each day, and there are still a couple of places left - as long as you have, or can get, the right materials.
You’ll find more info on my website.

Meanwhile I hope you enjoy this video.

And good luck with your people sketching!