This session was run by Anna Steinberg who also led one of the Documentary Illustration sessions. This was an exploration of reportage drawing which means drawing from observation as a form of recording. This is similar to what we have been doing in the Documentary Illustration. The first exercise we did was drawing each other around the classroom. This was a good warm up exercise as we were in a comfortable environment and there wasn’t much movement going on, making it easier to capture the environment and people.
On a few of the sketches I added a dilute water colour wash to things with standout colours such as peoples jumpers. I think this adds character and an energy to the sketches.
Then we moved into the Forum and sketched people there. This is a less comfortable environment but I’m getting used to drawing in public because of the work on Documentary Illustration.
I can see myself improving at doing quick figure sketches as I’m able to capture the key details. Also sometimes I caricature certain details/ features to make them stand out and really capture the essence of the person. I found it very helpful to see Anna’s reportage sketchbooks as it gave me a lot of ideas and inspiration. I really liked her use of watercolour to brig life to an image and her use of continuous line to create the characters and scenery. Watercolour is a medium I’d like to practice and improve with.
My artistic inspirations for these sketches were Anna Steinberg’s reportage sketches and George Butler’s illustration for example:
Samuel Green Illustration 