Illustrating people
and meeting my nemesis on the train
I love drawing people. Achieving a likeness feels very satisfying and that’s the trap. You can end up with drawings that look like they’ve been made to prove that you’ve got a talent. The Britain’s Got Talent of artwork.
Realism Restlessness
Almost a year to the day I threw myself back into drawing, I became suddenly impatient with this sort of page in my sketchbook. WHO CARES if you can capture the likeness of a random man and his hat and his specific headphones?
Business Bombshells
Coinciding with this feeling, was my start on the Good Ship Illustration’s first ever Business Course* where I was made suddenly aware of how stupid it was (my words) that the only human figures in my illustration portfolio are the teeny-tiny ones who live in my maps.
*At the time of writing I’m 4 weeks in. The course is brilliant, kind and inspiring beyond all expectations & I’ll be sure to share more in a future post
My People Drawing Journey
Evidently, it was time for me to try to bridge the gap between my illustration style and my observational figure-drawing style. So I took my sketchbook to Liverpool, in search of crowds, art galleries and faces.
The man diagonally opposite on the train was my first subject. I decided I would spend longer than usual observing before putting pen to paper. I would consider the forms in his face and try to work in simplified lines. Things were going to be different.
“D’oh!” (what I said when I looked at the results on the page) ↓
Once I’d got over my cartoony embarrassment, it occurred to me that maybe I found this man difficult because his features were the opposite of my own.
His nose jaunted up while mine points down (sometimes over my mouth like a witch when I smile). His mouth was wide, mine is compact. His cheeks hollow, mine round.
After daydreaming about family features and the library of faces in my mind, I scribbled my own face from memory.
It was me! And moreover, it was my own face as a prototype of the way I think of faces.
Next, a boy with my kinda nose boarded the train. I tackled him using the same sort of face-language and my drawing felt natural. More like a personal shorthand less like a caricature.
(By caricature I mean a way of drawing a likeness that scrutinises reality and converts it into a grotesque imitation of an individual, often using a set-menu of exaggerated features and absolutely not the direction I want to head in).
The Walker Art Gallery
I arrived in Liverpool! It was my first time in the gorgeousness of the newly refurbished Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Galleries of the Walker. I wandered about, copying paintings.
A great exercise in character drawing was this wall of Madonnas. Fitting their faces into the tiny frames on my page forced me to cut out tons of detail. Plus, the room was so silent, and the squeaking of my pencils so deafening, that I raced it to a finish. No overthinking, just drawing.
Later, admiring the versatile and expressive characters figures on some medieval stained glass, it felt topsy-turvy to regard realism as the default and to feel self conscious about abstracting. It seems that many a medieval artist prioritised communication over getting bogged down by accurate noses and hands and feet. Maybe realism was the real retrograde step.
Time to go home
Feeling warmed-up and less self-conscious, I drew two women on the train. Different to each other and seen from my eyes. Less accurate but hopefully more true.
Please do let’s chat if you’re on your own people drawing journey! I would love to hear about your processes and any interventions you have found helpful. Or perhaps you have a shorthand approach to humans that flows naturally? Looking forward to your comments! X
This was such a fab post to read! I've been on a people drawing journey and the idea of not drawing render the likeness as good as possible is a revelation. Yes! Why on earth do I get stuck valuing my work like this, then feeling meh. Its just not the point. I need to undo (again- this happens all the time) my art education and the idea that it needs to look like reality.
I hope I can start to turn this idea into a habit! 😬
I used to do absolutely anything I could to avoid drawing people!! But 9 years of keeping a comic diary have sorted that out and it's interesting to look at the progress over the years. By definition it all has to be from memory, so (when I remember) I am making mental notes about distinguishing features etc...but capturing the feel of a person seems to just come from the subconscious somehow and my worst drawings are always the ones where I am using photo reference. Love your sketches from the day out!