People Drawing!

I love drawing people - moving people, working people, sleeping people, faces. One of my regular outlets is portrait parties in real life or online - like pencils4tea and drawingisfree. But I've been skipping a lot of them lately - so when there was a chance to jump on a zoom call and draw some faces, I did so without hesitation. And what fun I had! The music (used to time each portrait) was super funny (some sitters had a really hard time not laughing :) Of course, my favorite was chicken singing one of the songs from the movie Frozen! In short - I should do it more often ;)

Here are some of the previous people drawings I did not share before - I only recently realized that I've been posting more of these on Instagram, so this is a little catch-up. 

Drawing People: 32 portraits of people I've never met in real life.

Lots of people sketching is happening these days. I will write about them one by one - today I share a bunch of faces from an online portrait party that happens every week on zoom: Pencils4Tea - hosted by a wonderful artist Kirsty Lockhart - it is happening on Thursdays 6-7pm UK time and is a free and a very friendly place where each portrait is timed by a song. One of the things I realized when I looked back at 2024 was that my "listening life" was a bit dormant so I am trying to remedy that this year since Pencils4Tea has a Spotify playlist it became a good source of inspiration! Kristi also started a pencils4tea substack - check it out! 

Drawing People

My people drawing these days have a few stable outlets: my mirror, my parents, and two fantastic online portrait parties (I am a fan of Pencils4Tea on Thursdays and DrawingIsFree on Mondays). 

I will share some results from my encounters with the mirror and my sketches of parents in separate posts - but here are my latest portrait parties:

Drawing with Friends

This year I already had several wonderful chances to draw with other people - exchanging news, ideas, new color loves, various techniques, impressions from different events. Or just drawing side by side or sharing a cup of tea and a quiet moment.

Two quotes from the conversations that happened while I was drawing these portraits:

"you know how you work on something for some time, and then you are done and it is ok - but you want your sketch back? that is where blue line enters". 

"Try this gold. I did not expect it but suddenly there are so many uses for it around me"

People sketching - online communities keep me going through another season!

Overall craziness of the pre-holiday and holiday season overlapped with the election season and with many folds of caregiving and projects left few holes in my schedule for some people drawing - which I continue to do in person and online - mostly via @pencils4tea - an online group of people who draw each other and time with songs. Here are some faces and experiments:

Keeping the people sketching habit going through the seasons.

I love drawing people - people I know, people I just saw, people who are working, playing, eating,  sleeping. Some seasons of my life give me more subjects to keep my people-sketching habit going, some less. Right now I am mostly drawing people online -mainly @pencils4tea - an online group of people who draw each other and time with songs. Often I can jump in only for a few songs and sometimes I stay for the whole hour. I've written about it before - but today I am sharing several recent catches:

December Portrait Party Tradition Continues!

I had a pleasure of attending another December Portrait Party hosted by @artschoolofthefuture to celebrate a birthday it's founder, amazing teacher and artist - @ramahughes . The pleasure of drawing with this group is one of my December highlights! If you want to see my previous notes on these portrait parties - here is a link!

Recent December tradition: Portrait Party with the Art School of the Future

I am a big fan of the art and art teaching that Rama Hughes brings into this world. You might know that he is the main force behind the Art School of the Future and his daily sketch diary is a (wonderfully consistent and often inspiring inquiries) part of my media diet :)

I've been a part of Rama's portrait party wagon for some time now but it gets better and better with time. This year I decided to see what will happen if I bring my printmaking tools to the timed portrait making and I had a blast! All the one-minute poses were done with either a pen or a brush pen. But all the five-minute poses were done with a pentel pocket brush pen filled with black ink and my stencils/printmaking kit.