Tips 4 Figures as part of a scene

Sketching Tips 4: Figures as part of a scene.

I think that a really good urban sketch can capture a moment in time and tell a story at the same time. Including figures in your sketches can help turn a scene into a story. I’m not talking about those sketches where you are just focusing on a figure, or a couple of figures – that’s something we’ll come to in the fulness of time.

When you include figures in your sketches you could choose to use:-

* Silhouettes

In this first picture, all bar one of the figures is a silhouette. I decided to give the other figure a white top for a little bit of variation. In this sketch the silhouettes give movement and life to the picture, and also add scale to the building behind it. The building itself is so lightly shaded that the silhouette figures make a real contrast, and contrast can help create drama and impact. Silhouettes are a good way of capturing a figure. Figures move, and they don’t always return to the same position. It can be really difficult to capture a figure if you don’t have a technique. Each of these figures was just a very quick outline impression, where I was more concerned with capturing stance or movement than perfect anatomical proportions. Each outline was shaded in later.

* Outlines

In the second picture the figures are mostly just outlines. These are as quick to sketch as silhouettes, but rather than shading the whole figure in, I just added a few lines to suggest clothing, bags etc. Again, there’s contrast between the figures and the statue base, because the statue base is far more intricate and detailed. The point of these figures was really just to suggest the crowd around the statue, so total accuracy, and shading just wasn’t necessary for them.

* Figures in perspective

In this picture the largest and lightest figures look close to the viewer, while the darker and smaller ones look further away. You can see that this one combines silhouettes and outline sketches. I went like the clappers with the couple in the foreground to get them in outline before they passed by, as I think that they add a real element of story to it.

* The ‘monk’ picture

I thought for a while before I included the monk sketch. The reason why I hesitated is because in this sketch the monk doesn’t so much add to the story, he IS the story. But I included it as it’s a good example of techniques I want to talk about. Every now and then you will just be in the right place at the right time to capture a moment. This happened with my monk picture above. I was visiting Prague in April of 2017, and crossing the Charles Bridge at about 9 am this morning I was passed by this chap. I whipped out my pen and book, and sketched the outline of his figure as quickly as I could. Whether he was a real monk, or involved in something for the tourists, I couldn’t tell you. After he’d gone, I sketched the chap with the hood up on the far right, who was walking towards me. After he’d gone, I put  in the couple between him and the monk, who just happened to be walking slowly enough for me to do so. So actually, all of these figures were sketched from life, but they weren’t all there at the same time. It’s a composite sketch – honest to the scene in as much they did all walk across the bridge within let’s say 30 minutes of each other, although this exact scene didn’t quite happen in real life. It’s a representation of half an hour on the bridge, rather than a caught photographic moment.

When I felt I’d sketched enough figures to make a nice composite group, only then did I start sketching the bridge details around them – I could afford to wait and take my time since these things  weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. It is deliberate that all of the larger figures, other than the monk, are walking towards us, while he’s walking away from us – a man walking against the tides of time, if you like. 

As with most other things, I tend to feel that incorporating figures into your sketches is something you get better at the more you can practise it. Boiling it down to basics:-

* There are good reason for putting figures into your sketches. They can add life, movement, drama, and turn a tableau into a story.

* If you are going to include figures, then it does have implications for how you make your sketch. Silhouettes you can put in at any time, after you’ve sketched in buildings, backgrounds etc. However if you’re going for outline figures, or anything more complicated, you’re probably better off sketching the figures in first. The buildings and backgrounds will still be there when you’re ready, the figures probably won’t.

* You have to find a way of working very quickly with figures, which works for you. I find that whatever type of figures I’m doing, I always start with an outline. Practise this, and you might like to even try drawing outline figures without looking at your paper, or looking away from the figure in front of you. You won’t get perfect figures this way, but it’s a good practise exercise to help you make quick, fluid outline sketches. Once you’ve got an outline, you can decide how much detail, if any, you want to put inside it.

* You’re not trying to create a perfect, photographic image. You’re not going to be able to quickly sketch in more than a couple of figures in one go. That’s fine. As figures come and go, pick and choose which you want to include in your scene, and build it up. The more you try and do this, the more naturally it will come to you when you start building up a scene.