Well… I know it is still a long way off…but my BCN trip prep book has begun. (4th international USK symposium in Barcelona if you don’t know what I am referring to!)

And this year the trip prep will be a HUGE focus for me. I AM (i really AM!) going to start training for sketching people more…

So here is the title page and a few pages that I did this week -using reference books initially to get the right marks and proportions happening and then will start sketching in public. I promised my friend Chris that I would have done 20 faces and 20 figures before I saw her next… so the night before… I did them all!

I can intersperse my people sketches with planning notes (such as how to decide on which workshop to do – this page was writing down my shortlist of way too many!)

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And then last night while waiting for our dinner, I sketched the view! Actually this was just a glorified thumbnail that now is a ‘sketch’. I have thought for a while that the best way to do cafe sketches is to draw the people first and then hint at the interior space later – of course Jim Richard’s new book and his approach- start with people has been a good reminder. This time I actually drew the middle group of people first and I found that that really helped me get the people closest to me the right size and the further group then behind them. I have discovered a Pilot V pen while sorting my studio and really love it to draw and then dissolve the line! FUN FUN FUN.

I have been agonising how to draw more people for years I know- I do have a mild dread ‘ruining’ a page in my normal sketchbook which I know is totally hypocritical and yet a separate sketchbook just for people seems like a cop-out for me. SO having in my trip prep book feels right to me!