Sketch Children & Capture Moment of Life

This week, let's sketch children. Often parents or teachers or care givers are with children. Get permission first(*my business card is a helpful ID device). Making friends with children is the best way to sketch them. Technically, the quicker, the better to capture moving children.

I sat next to a mother and a girl having a cream bun...putting cream on around her mouth. While chatting, I sketched her. We, three had a fun.

Not only front faces, I study back figures, too.

Often my style is called, "Loose." A very long way to come to my current style. Try not to draw or paint too much. Overwork is no good for a loose style. If a drawing line is correct, a simple and "single" line is enough and sufficient.

Squint eyes and enhance values. As long as a value and a line are correct, you can do anything in painting --- is my finding.
Regarding drawing skills, bad news is there's no royal road for learning. Good news is everyday sketch improves drawing skills certainly. So, please do not give up and keep up quick sketching even 5 or 10 minutes daily that makes a huge difference in years.

A boy above pulled down the pants and got into a fountain. His parents happily allowed me to sketch him. (*Furthermore, the father took the photos of my sketches and proudly urged me, "Tell them my son, 'so-and-so' is the model!" Ahahaha! Oh, Mom & Dad love the son so much!) Really a fun.
Children's any face expressions or postures are very fascinating. I sometimes sketch a crying child and try to calm her/him down with parents!
(= you can imagine how quickly I sketch kids in bad temper.)
Kids often come close to me, a sketcher and love drawing, too. They soon get I'm working on something important. Children really respect a sketcher and never, ever interrupt my work.



I'm a hunter to capture the moment, as I hardly use photo references.
In my experience, after millions of life model sketches, photo references are helpful. Why? Eyes tell where are a subject's real lines and correct values based on photos. (*I hope my poor English makes sense!)
Life sketching enables an artist to build accurate and detailed visual information on a simple sketch --- even on a stick figure. Oh, yes, a cartoonist is a good example. All good cartoonists are great life sketchers. A reversed way -- using photo references first -- seems counterproductive to learn figurative drawings.

So, "Sketch, sketch, sketch!" That's all and my joy.

The illustration above is based on my daily sketches.
In addition, a person in the work passed away. One family member talked to me(*they remembered we had chatted over a sketch at that time). I asked the person to wait right there and printed out my illustration for the family. We shed tears and held hands together. So, I believe a life sketcher is a guardian of time.

If you are interested in my past posts on quick sketches,
How to Make Quickies PART1
Importance of lines, drawing skills (Edgar Dogas's mentor's quote)How to Make Quickies PART2
Watercolor Quickies = Witty Short Speeches
How to Make Quickies PART3
Loose style = calculated spontaneity
How to Make Quickies PART4
Capturing Face Expressions
Sketch--Part 1 Women
Sketch--Part2 Men
Sketch Part3 Older People
Sketch Part4 Chilndren
Sketch Part5 Children, Artist as Guardian of Time
Enjoy a dessin and a croquis! Let us live our lives fully!

Sketch Children & Capture Moment of Life