I’ve been carrying a smaller sketchbook with me along with my regular one so that I can draw quick people sketches when I’m sat about, often in that purple brush pen that I got in Chicago, sometimes in pencil as you’ll see with another post from my friend’s stag party. Usually they’re people in the bar or in the street, sometimes people I will be chatting to and learning their stories, like the guy above with the beard who I sketched at the Ship while waiting for my friend to arrive, he was from Australia. I like to draw beards. You remember several years ago I wrote a book about people sketching called “Five Minute Sketching: People” (still available in most places, but I don’t get any royalties or anything) and I talked about how I don’t really like sketching people because I find it hard getting people just right, so I spend five minutes (or much less if possible) just to capture the essence of how I can see them, and move on (before they notice), just part of the general scene. I think these would have taken a minute, or maybe two.

While out, people would see I had a sketchbook and would ask if I would draw them, to which I obliged with the usual proviso that it probably wouldn’t be very accurate. You have some nice chats with people when out drawing, I find it’s always good to be friendly about it. One couple of lads were having a good night out and they asked me to sketch them, and were well pleased to have a quick sketch of their night. I do like to draw more relaxed natural poses, albeit with very generic people (and when people move about it’s often mix and match – this person’s head, someone else’s body, someone else’s pose). If you’re sat near people and want to sketch them it’s a nice thing to do to ask if they mind, though as other sketchers have said, you often get more natural poses when people don’t know, and it matters less when it turns out to look nothing like them, which is the usual case for me.

There was one other time though, I saw one guy wearing a big very sketchable bowler hat. I had noticed him staring at me even before I was drawing, but I whipped out a black pen and started drawing the outline of the hat. Immediately he came over and demanded to know if I was drawing him. “Well, your hat; is that ok?” He made it very clear that I had to ask consent if I was to draw him or take a photo of him (not that any photos were taken). “Oh ok; well, do you give me permission to draw you?” “No, I do not.” “Ok, that’s fair enough, I won’t draw you.” I must admit, I definitely wanted to draw this character now, this annoyed man in a bowler hat, but I always respect people’s wishes if they say they don’t want to be drawn, and scribbled over the hat sketch. Anyway, a little while after that I got back to my sketchbook to add in some more detail to a pencil sketch I had done earlier that evening, and I was writing some notes. I noticed bowler hat man still glaring at me, so I stared back for a few seconds. Immediately he was back. “You’re still drawing me!” he snapped. “No I’m not,” I reassured. “You are! Show me!” I smiled, and closed my book over. “Mate, I’m not drawing you, you need to take my word for it. However, I don’t give you permission to look at my private notebook.” This went down well. “What? I can’t believe you say that, after what we just talked about?” “That’s right!” I grinned. It seems he begrudgingly accepted that, and left me be. Look, I’m an open book, and I always show anyone who asks what I’m drawing, and if they are in the sketch and don’t want to be, I draw them out. I also reserve the right to close my book.

I quite like using the purple brush pen for quick sketches, it’s not as harsh as the black brush pen, though that goes well with colours (though it often smudges the opposite page). I did a lot more quick people sketching later in the trip though on my friend’s stag do, and for that I mostly used pencil, since I got a different small sketchbook (Fabriano Venezia) which is amazing with pencil. These were done in the small Stillman and Birn alpha, which is good with pencil but I preferred the brush pen in that book. I go through these phases of using purple pens.