#OneWeek100People
Another #OneWeek100People has passed! It's been a few years since all stars aligned so that I had the week to delve on one of these! Last time, as I recall, my aim was to sketch 100 hands in one week. I needed to practice hands at the time (still do!).
The challenge to sketch one hundred people in five days is the brainchild of artists Marc Taro Holmes and Liz Steel, who jumpstarted the initiative seven years ago. During this week, thousands of amateur and pro artists worldwide line up beside them to sketch people, live or from reference photos. It doesn’t matter, as long as you keep the stream going, putting out as many sketches of people as you can, and posting them online to share with the wider community. It may sound like shock treatment for some, but once you’re on the roll, the benign side effects may include: improving your portraying game, become economic about your art, and bond with likeminded people around the world.
For the past months I've been commuting to work hauling an Arteza A4 sketchbook in my backpack, making compositions of people riding the Lisbon metro system. The challenge wasn't all that different from my usual commuting week, but I sped up the sketching to keep up with the numbers and the daily postings. Here’s a few tricks and techniques that I tried to make the most of during the challenge:
When hunting for models, I tend to seek out a particular expression that makes each person unique. I may be lucky to notice the expression right away, or I may need to stare creepingly at someone before the quirk reveals itself, which may never happen. When it doesn’t, I get a poker face or a resting bitch face, which are also great, considering the goal at hand and the statistical sample.
The inconvenience of using watercolor while on a crowded train led me to make the most out of pen and ink, going back to my comic book comfort zone. Back at the studio, I had the most fun laying down the black ink wash that connected all the figures in a graphic cohesiveness. It was a design exercise as well as a sketching one. Picking and choosing where to add the black wash, depending on the value of shadow, garment, hair or skin tone.
Due to excess ink flow, from my Noodler’s Ahab pen, fingerprinting turned into a shading technique. Using my dirty fingers to handle midtone shadows and afro hair.
I added some circular frames on characters that seemed out of the composition, to bring them back to the fold.
In a crowded train, I mostly only have access to the person’s head. The platforms and the street outside provided some full body figures. Interconnecting faces with whole figures was a fun part of the game. I used shadows under the figures leaning against the wall to render a sense of space to the pages.
By a happy coincidence, my nephew turned one on the final day of the challenge. I saved him the last spot!
