Is it my imagination or has the old-fashioned courtesy of taking your hat off when you're inside gone the way of the unicorn?

We went to dinner with my father-in-law the other night and I was amazed at the number of guys (and a few gals) with hats on. I drew the two gentlemen in the sketch above simply because they were sitting in front of us. It also surprised me to see a guy wearing a purple polo! Go, dude, good for you. 

It started out as sketching practice—and I'm pleased to say I'm improving—before becoming more of an awareness about the hats. You haven't seen the other people sketches because they looked more like aliens. Disfigured aliens. Maybe a few zombie aliens. Definitely not pretty. But highly entertaining.

I started looking around and it seemed over 50% of the male population was wearing hats. I'm sure this is nothing new. It's just one of the many gifts of sketching—it tends to raise your level of awareness about what's going on right in front of you.

Have you had that happen to you? You're sketching a place or a thing and suddenly you're launched down a totally unexpected path of learning because the sketching made you slow down to observe? That's what keeps me sketching. Those unexpected paths that lead me to random, seemingly unrelated learnings...that nearly always comes back into play at a later date.

I especially find travel journaling to be like that. Maybe because my mind is already open to new experiences in a place I've not been before. My left brain becomes a little like a toddler, "Why? Why this? Why that? How come that's green or he's wearing that or she said that?"

The cool thing about my left brain being busy is that it leaves my right brain alone and allows it to do what it does best, draw.

If you're interested in learning more about sketching on location, come and join me for An Imaginary Visit To Sweden, starting on April 7th. We'll be explore the country, its people and history. Click here for more info.

P.S. And by the way, National Hat Day is in January. As far as I know there's no National Ball Cap Day! Happy April!!

P.S.S. I am one spread away from being finished with this no name watercolor sketchbook that has been my purgatory for the last six months or so. Cannot wait to be finished with it so I can get back to my beloved Stillman and Birn sketchbook.

Final Project from Joanne Sharpe's class

We went to my nephew's last home game of his high school career last Friday night and I decided to attempt sketching the players...

Black gel pen in No Name Watercolor Journal 3.5 x 5.5 inches

Here are my observations (and remember, these are from a non-sports person):

Making Mistakes
Are you willing to fail in your art attempts?

Are you willing to make bad art* in order to learn to make better art with the hope of eventually making good, or even brilliant art?

*Definition of bad art - art that is filled with so-called mistakes or inaccuracies.

Most of us are scared to death someone is going to confront us for being frauds, for masquerading as an "ARTIST" (said with a French accent) when we know good and well we're not. Scary, huh?

And yet, I've never had it happen. Even when I'm making art that is less than stellar, I've only ever received neutral or nice comments.

The fear is persist and often paralyzing. It holds us hostage and we don't get any better because we're afraid to make mistakes.

And there's the irony...because making mistakes is how we learn to do better, to do differently. 

Draw during the performance, color and text added later 7 x 5.5 inch spread in no name watercolor journal

Drawing People
Artists want to draw people in their sketches, but their fear stops them. When they finally do add people and the figures "don't look right," the artist freaks out and vows to never, ever add people to a sketch again.

The next time they try, they've built their fear of people into a bigger fear in their minds and when they fail to meet their goals again, the fear increases. Eventually, the fear of drawing people grows until drawing people seems nearly impossible.

Sound familiar? Stop and consider two things…

Maybe, instead of trying to put figures into a sketch, you should consider drawing JUST people in a junk journal for a while until you get the hang of them. Second, make up your mind that you'll make mistakes, draw crooked lines, wobbly noses and too-small heads and that it's okay—you're learning. Be excited for the opportunity!

Learning To Draw People
So back to drawing people…there are three things I highly recommend you do when you want to learn or improve your people-drawing skills:

            1. Draw people you don't know. Seriously.
            2. Be prepared to make lots and lots and lots of mistakes.
            3. Make it fun!

1. If you start out trying to draw people you know, you're adding waaaaay more pressure than you need. Would it be wonderful to draw your BFF from your last camping trip? Absolutely, but if your BFF turns out looking like Godzilla drawn by a 4th grader, your BFF may be notifying the creativity police to revoke your license!**

**Just in case you didn't know, creative licenses are non-revokable!

If you don't know the person, then it no longer matters if it looks EXACTLY like them especially if they never see it. Yay! That drops the pressure. As long as it looks like a human body, you've scored a win!

Do you think those guys from the orchestra will ever see that page? It's doubtful, but if they do, I'm sure they'll understand the concept of practice, practice and more practice.

2…and 3. It's hard to separate points 2 and 3 because here's the bottom line—if it's not fun and I'm making a lot of mistakes, I'm gonna stop. Why torture myself that way even for the sake of learning? I figure you're probably the same way.

We learn more, we learn better and we learn faster when the learning is fun.

When I'm working on improving my skills in an area where I'm in need of significant improvement, I do my best to find a way to make it fun. In the very top sketch, I went to see the Sarasota Pops Orchestra perform the music of Billy Joel with my sister-in-law. I was fortunate enough to be sitting in the seventh row and there was enough light (most of the time) to see my sketchbook.

It was a bit wild—music flowing, people clapping and singing along, performers on stage dancing and moving around, lights flashing different colors—and it was kinda overwhelming, but I figured what the hey, this was a chance that would never come again.

At times, I had to stop drawing a musician until he came back to a similar pose I had originally begun on my page. Other times, I was singing along or clapping to the beat rather than drawing. I was having fun and I didn't know any of those people! And bonus, it was dark enough that no one but my SIL and the guy next to me knew what I was about.

Mall Lunch Crowd Drawn in Traveler's Notebook by Midori

On the mall sketches, I went to the food court at the large mall near me and picked the restaurant with the longest, slowest line, Chipotle's Mexican Grill. I positioned myself where I had a good view but not close enough to be noticeable.

And this is where I'm going to add Suggestion Number 4: Set clear goals!

Are you looking to sketch body/posture? Capture motion? Capture a likeness? Create a portrait? How much detail do you need? Are you focusing on clothing or draping or shape or texture or facial features or hair or little kids or women or men or teenagers or or or…

Know what you're going to practice BEFORE YOU START! By breaking it down to specific goals, you're more likely to feel successful about your attempts. If you're working on the bodies and their posture or movement, do you have the time to also focus on the facial features?  If you want to work on facial features, why are you drawing their whole bodies?

Back at the mall, I wanted to capture a general likeness with a focus on body shape and posture. As I observed my victims subjects, I made up stories in my head about where they worked or why they were at the mall. Some had badges on a lanyard. Obviously, they were on break for lunch, but where did they work, what type of work?

I worked in pencil and then went back and worked in pen on a couple before I decided it wasn't really necessary.


I then decided narrow my focus to just working on body types and to leave off the heads/facial details all together as I was spending way too much time trying to capture the details of their faces.

I found posture was hard to capture accurately as some folks lean or cock their hips and it became a challenge to recreate it on the page.

Something to practice, to observe well and to observe quickly. I often fell prey to drawing what I "thought" was there rather than what was really there. Hence, the guy's feet at bottom left look like the belong on an elf.

Practicing Anytime, Anywhere
We get caught up thinking we have to go somewhere special to draw, we need special tools, or a certain amount of free time to pursue our art goals to which I say, "Hog wash!"

That's excusing-making and procrastination talking. Sketch the guy on television, sketch your favorite comedian. Look at people in a magazine or online. The point is to keep at the goal until you develop the skills you want and need.

If you find yourself standing in line, waiting in the doctor's office, for the CPA or for your kids to get out of school, look around and see if there's anyone you can practice on.

When combine conscious thought, intention and practice, we have an unbeatable combination for learning. So what are you waiting for?! Start sketching!

The Bottom Line
If you truly want to draw people then draw people. Draw nothing but people. Make people your focus for however long it takes to begin to get comfortable with drawing them. Learn to observe. Then learn to observe quickly. After the skills of how to draw people have solidified into a decent skill base, go back to adding them into a sketch that provides them with an environment.
Have fun, play, experiment and keep filling the page!

Okay, let me explain…
I wasn't sketching the woman. I was sketching her scarf. It was gorgeous with colors of blues, turquoise and aquas.
Unfortunately, the scarf happened to be worn by the woman and so I had to sketch her as well. Otherwise, the scarf would look like it was levitating on the page and since I didn't plan well, she didn't turn out so great.
She turned out like some kind of demonic mutant in my first attempt.


When I showed it to my husband, he had the audacity to laugh—can you believe that?!

I can. She's pretty funny looking.

By the way, in case you're wondering…it does not bother me that she turned out like a mutant or that she doesn't look a whole lot like herself in real life. You see, I don't know her from Adam's house cat. It's okay that she doesn't look like anyone I know.

Now, if I knew her…that would be a completely different kettle of fish!

After the sketch bomb on the left, I attempted to redeem myself by re-sketching her face to the right. This one turned out a little better and more proportional to her body.

The lady at the bottom was engrossed in her phone and had no idea anyone else was even in the café.
HINT: Folks who are playing with their phones make great sketching subjects! They seldom look up find you staring at them.

On Sunday, Chris and I went to one of our favorite Greek restaurants and sat out on the patio. The little English Sparrows were busy, busy, busy! The chirping was so loud at times it was a bit distracting.
I waited until we'd finished eating to get out my journal* and start sketching. I only had his** little face sketched when the birds disappeared. I'm can only guess it became too crowded for them. We sat for a little longer before I gave up and we went on about our day.

The odd thing about this is that even though I don't consider either of these pages to be anything to crow about, I really like them!

They were done in the flow of my day rather than a "special trip" just to sketch. My favorite sketches are almost always those that happen in the in-between moments of my day rather than those I create when I make a grand production of going out just to sketch.

How about you? Which are your favorites—the ones you plan out or those that happen organically?

*I've recently had some back issues so I switched to a smaller purse. This forced a change to a smaller journal as my usual Stillman & Birn Zeta would not fit in the smaller bag.

The journal seen above is a no-name watercolor journal from one of the big craft chains. It's 4.24 by 5.5 inches. It's okay, but not my favorite sketchbook by any means.

The palette is a converted lipstick sampler. I cleaned out the leftover makeup and painted the mirror and lid white before adding my paint. It works in a pinch when I want to add just a hint of color to the page.

**I say "his," but in reality this is a composite of several different birds.