Last June, I wrote a blog post about how I was starting to feel a bit more confident when I was out drawing on location. Over the last couple of years, I’ve really come to love drawing people when I’m out and about. I love observing what they are doing, listening to what they are saying and noticing how wonderfully different everyone is. This is not something I have always enjoyed, and there was a point in time when I would actively avoid drawing people, sneakily pretending that they weren’t part of the scene in front of me.

Although drawing people is something that I am still learning, I think that in the beginning, there were two main things stopping me from practising them in my sketchbook. The first thing was that I found drawing people really hard. I had spent a long time practising drawing buildings and landscapes, but people were (still are!) hard and a very new subject. The second thing, and perhaps the biggest block was confidence, which is what I wanted to write about here. I’ve interspersed this post with sketchbook pages where I’ve drawn people, they’re not really in any order - I hope this is OK!

This month, I shared a big sketchbook tour from the last two years of drawing people on Patreon and it helped me to think about what I’ve learnt about confidence and drawing people when I’m out and about.

I think one of the first things that I learnt when I started practising drawing people was that if the subject (people) was new or challenging, then my surroundings and medium had to be comfortable and familiar. I learnt this on the first day of university. Because it t seemed like everyone else was using pen - I felt like I should be using pen too. About two hours into drawing people on the streets of Cambridge, I realised that I really wasn’t used to drawing in pen and so I switched to my favourite pencil. I instantly felt better, more comfortable and more relaxed. In my brain, having one tricky thing that’s outside of your comfort zone looks a bit like a triangle, where two things could be within the comfort zone and one thing is more of a challenge. For example, if drawing people is the challenging thing, then my medium and place should be comfy - like drawing people with a pencil, in a coffee shop. I am definitely not an expert, just sharing what has worked for me.

Something that has also been really, really helpful has been making sure that I keep a sketchbook and a pencil case in my bag. This is because like anything, I’ve found that confidence is a bit like a muscle. The more you do something, the more comfortable it feels, and if my pencil case and sketchbook are ready to go, then I’ll be more likely to draw. More recently, using a smaller pencil case has helped keep things simple, which is always helpful if I’m already feeling a bit flustered, I wrote a blog post about my smaller pencil case here. Having a sketchbook in my bag at all times means that if I’m on the way to do something, or on the way back from something, then it’s really easy to have everything there, and I often think about where I might stop to do a bit of drawing before I’ve left the house. Also, having everything you need and ready to go takes the faffing out of the process, which I’ve found really helpful when I’m practising something new.

The next thing I wanted to talk about sounds a bit contradictory, but I think it sort of does make sense. I’ve found both drawing people who are moving really fast and drawing people that are moving very slowly, equally helpful. I think I’ll explain a bit about why each one has helped me to feel a bit more confident when I’m out and about. I’ve found trying to capture people’s shapes as they’re moving fast helpful because my brain has less time to think and worry about what the outcome of my drawing will look like. Before I’ve even started I sort of accept that these drawings will be more like visual notes than a ‘finished piece’, so that mindset sort of takes the pressure off. Drawing people who are still or doing repeated movements is also something I’ve found helpful. I love drawing in cafes where people are sat still for a little while and the people behind the counter repeat what they are doing. I have found that having a coffee or my bag on the table helps to distract a little bit from my sketchbook and mostly people are minding their own business anyway.

I think that cafe’s have been the place where I feel the most inconspicuous when I’m drawing people, which links back to what I said before about feeling comfortable. Something that I worried about a lot when I started practising people was whether others would notice and what they would say if they did. What I’ve found is that the more that I go out and draw, the less worry I feel, which links back to what I said about confidence feeling a bit like a muscle. I have also found that people don’t generally approach me and when they do, they have always been kind. I know I wrote about this last June, but I feel like having a few stock responses lined up has really helped me to feel less worried. If I’m out practising drawing people I might have “I’m just practising drawing people” ready to go. I also often find following up with a question can be helpful. Something like “do you like drawing?” has actually opened up some really nice and interesting conversations with people who are generally interested, and if the person isn’t interested then the question tends to end the conversation, and they move on.

I’ve also found that picking people to draw that are a bit further away really helpful. People who are a few tables away, over on the other side of the street or through a window can be good places to start. People don’t normally notice if I’ve been drawing them, but on the couple of occasions that they have caught my eye, I’ve just smiled and looked in a different direction and the moment has moved on. It can also help to use references from all of the people you see and ‘build’ a pretend person. For example, you might borrow one person’s hair, another person’s head, one person’s body and someones else’s legs. This can be particularly helpful if you are trying to capture people who are moving or walking past.

Something that I have found interesting has been revisiting the same places, as you get to know the way the surroundings look and it can be really fun to look back and compare the drawings that you made. I’ve also really enjoyed drawing from TV, usually documentaries or interviews have been best, where the camera stays on the people’s faces for a longer period of time than perhaps an action film. Drawing from TV can help remove the fear from drawing in public, but I do find this a lot harder than drawing in a place like a cafe, where the people are still and the view point isn’t continuously moving.

This month, I’ve been sharing lots more of my process and sketchbooks over on Patreon and have recently shared a sketchbook tour of the last two years worth of observational drawings of people. In this sketchbook tour, I talk through the drawings I made when I started and share lots more of my own learning process.