One of the other things I love about public transport is that you get to look at a range of people, and do quick (and preferably discrete) sketches of them. sometimes you only get a few minutes before things change, and you’ve got to deal with the bumping bus or train messing with your line choices. Fun!
Today I felt in the mood, and had two pages left in my current moleskine to fill, and so I decided to go for the subway instead of the bus, in search of prey. (Er, prey=faces/bodies/gestures/poses.) I’m careful to try not to make people aware I’m staring at them, and so pick a good distances, and preferably hide the book and pen, or try to pretend to be writing a shopping list, and looking off into space…
It does not always work, and certainly is sort of hit and miss and depends upon my mood. Most results are awful, since I either don’t have time, or get jogged, or am too chicken to take a good look to get a line right. But it’s good practice for holding things in my head… Anyway, guess what? I got on the train and – hey! There was a woman sketching in her sketch-pad! So I figured she’d be sympathetic to me sketching her (if she caught me) and decided that she was the subject for three or four stops. then I got off. I wonder if she drew me and maybe she’s posting her results on a blog somewhere…
The image right (click for larger view) has some scans from my sketch book of today’s crop. Actually, only the woman drawing was from the morning subway, the man at the top was on the 200 bus, and the woman and man on the left at bottom were from the Dash F, and the woman bottom right (only got a minute or two of her) was from the subway in the afternoon. (Full disclosure: I don’t always do this, but this time here and there I cleaned up some messy or confusing lines in photoshop.)
-cvj
(All images copyright Clifford V. Johnson, as usual.)
🙂
-cvj
Stalker :p