If you would like to get really good at sketching people, then you must sketch people as often as possible. Practice Sketching Peopleīear in mind that formulas will only get you so far. But these things don't mean a hill of beans if the overall composition is poor. Once I have the overall compositional idea worked out, I can then fuss with precise anatomy and details. The questions I ask myself while doing this is what will a figure standing up look like in this spot? Or what about having a figure kneeling in this area? What would it look like if I overlap these two figures? I don't want, nor do I need to spend all day drawing perfect anatomy and details to solve most compositional problems. I use quick sketching to rough out compositional ideas for finished drawings and paintings.

The goal of fast sketching is to help you visualize a moment or an idea by capturing only the essentials.

Sketching people from life will empower your skills of observation very quickly.Īs implied above, the goal is not to have anatomically precise results, though you can arrive at that with additional refinement and time. People are complex shapes that move a lot and can assume many different poses. First of all, sketching people from life is a highly recommended practice, even if you don't plan to have humans as part of your future subject matter. There are many reasons to sketch people quickly. As you progress and develop more confidence you may find your style is not a sketchy look, always be open to what you like and what works best for you. Keeping things light and sketchy is more important at the beginning, especially when you are drawing the boxes and lines since you may want to erase these later. Whereas if you draw a dark, solid line you may be more hesitant to make adjustments to that line if it's needed. Keeping your lines sketchy keeps you from getting locked in on what may be a bad line or shape. I also like to think of it like sculpting, you start with a lump of clay and constantly add or take away until you get what you intended.

Kneeling person sketch