Sketching once more

It has been lovely to be gradually getting back into the world and sketching again (I’m in Queensland, Australia, where — with the odd short sharp lockdown — it’s mostly safe and legal to do so).

A note — these close-ups are really close-up, and likely larger than the original drawing. The sketches are done in a pocket Moleskine sketchbook (3.5″ x 5.5″), with Pitt Artist Pens.

I’ve written about trying to keep sketching when this wasn’t an option (sketching adventures; experiments with sketching; sketching the people glimpsed from the corner of your eye).

I’m still only getting the chance to do it occasionally, but I’m trying to take more of those chances! I’ve missed being in practice watching little mannerisms, the way people stand or walk or put their weight on one hip, or hold bags. It’s a whole vocabulary of human movement that’s very useful to know — and the more I draw it, the more it’s likely to come out of my pen when I need it to.

My pens dried out last year and I had to replace them in order to do the QLA portraits. So I’m getting used to the colours again, and to seeing people in the wild, and to finding where the corners and chairs that I’m allowed to linger in are.

In more crowded times, sketching makes me like people more. This year, I’m just happy to see anyone again.

And it’s been lovely to move from drawing individuals decently spaced (as in the shopping centre sketches earlier in the post), to groups at art galleries (the border was open again, so Angela Slatter and I drove to see the travelling Archibald Prize exhibition at the Tweed Regional Gallery), to going to an actual gig (the Wildflowers collaboration at The Old Museum), and realising how wildly different pen colours are under coloured lights, and the joy of sequins.