Sketching People in Motion

I've been enjoying Marc Taro Holmes's Craftsy class, Sketching People in Motion, but I don't often get a chance to practice his techniques. I do, however, love to play tennis and watch A LOT of professional tennis players on tv and in tournaments in person, when I get the chance.

Today, I was watching the Citi Open on Tennis Channel and decided to get out my scribbler (3 x 5" homemade sketchbook) and test out my new water soluble Lamy black ink (in my Lamy Joy fountain pen) and my newest watercolor brushes from Rosemary & Co. and Escoda. Here are my attempts.

Monfils serving with Zverev hitting a 2 handed backhand behind him

Davis & Pegula hitting serves in watercolor

Pegula hitting a forehand in watercolor; Davis lining up a forehand in watersoluble ink

I find that what is key to drawing people in motion is to develop my visual short term memory as the pose I want to capture lasts for only a split second and is repeated every 30 seconds or so per game. I will need to keep practicing - but, lucky for me, it's the U.S. summer hard court season with lots of tournaments culminating in the U.S. Open AND including the Olympics this year!

How do you practice sketching people in motion?

Drawing inspiring artists

One thing I definitely love about the Sktchy app is being able to pay tribute to artist who inspire or support you by drawing them! I did that with varying degrees of success over the last few days.

Vin Ganapathy is a huge inspiration for me. He has been one of my teachers at Sketchbook Skool and is one of the first artists from whom I've bought original artwork! I love his portraits done primarily in Tombow brush pens. They are so expressive! I used my watercolors, Kuretake brush pen, and some of Marc Taro Holmes's watercolor techniques to draw Vin here. I loved the shadows in this inspiration photo.

Jane Royal is a beautiful water colorist who I've met on Sktchy. She paints people with the minimum of graphite lines and really lets the watercolors do their magic. She has been very supportive of my art. I wish I had captured her likeness better here. Nut, it's the thought hat counts, right?

Who are your favorite artists? Have you drawn or painted them?

Urban Sketching using Marc Taro Holmes's Techniques

I have been loving Marc Taro Holmes's Craftsy classes, Sketching People in Motion and Travel Sketching in Mixed Media. I love how he understands the constraints of urban sketching - especially when people are moving, you're on vacation and your family wants to keep moving, etc. To sketch people in motion, Marc teaches us how to capture gestures quickly with pencil and then move onto fountain pens, brush pens, and watercolors. In terms of travel sketching, Marc teaches us to do single line drawings, then 5-7 line drawings (cinq à sept), use shading and brush pens, watercolors, and eventually, watercolors alone.

I recently practiced these techniques in my hometown, Walnut Creek.