Feature Image Source: Marc Taro Holmes

#OneWeek100People is a free annual event launched by Marc Taro Holmes, and his urban sketching buddy Liz Steel in 2017. Each year they invite sketchers from all around the globe to sketch 100 people in 5 days.

This is the second year I’ve participated in this annual event, and it’s like the Olympics for people sketchers. If you like sketching people, you can’t miss it or you’ll have to wait a year until the next one.

One Week 100 People Event Pages

Read about it on Marc’s event page, Liz’s event page or head over to the One Week 100 People Facebook group and join up. If you’re not a Facebook fan, just use the #OneWeek100People hashtag on your social media of choice. I’ll be posting mine on my Instagram feed @rovingsketcher.

Draw people any way you want. From Life, from photo, from imagination. Use pen or pencil, watercolour or digital. All that matters is that you’re having fun practicing sketching people. Draw big, draw small, draw partial… it’s up to you.

Marc Taro Holmes Sketching People in Motion

I can highly recommend Marc’s inspiring art tutorial on Craftsy that’s all about sketching people in motion, using a three step approach.

It’s Marc’s tutorials that helped me embrace broken ink lines, which really loosened up my sketches and was instrumental in developing my personal sketching style. For that I’ll always be grateful that I stumbled upon his people sketching tutorials.

Marc was historically known as an urban sketcher, but nowadays he’s more of a studio painter and has veered towards abstraction with less ink lines.

Liz Steel Lost Lines Tutorials

I also encountered the same line sketching approach in the Edges classes in her Liz’s Foundations Course, where she calls these broken lines “lost lines”. (She expands on the concept of the lost lines in her Edges Course).

Although Liz is better known for her urban sketches of buildings (she trained as an architect) and her tea-cups, she also features loose figures in some of her urban sketches to help provide a sense of scale. She also features figures on location to capture the moment and provide a sense of place.

I think it’s interesting that Liz and Marc bring something different to the table for this challenge, and hopefully that entices the interest of a wider variety of artists.

Are you up for the challenge of sketching 100 people in 5 days (that’s 20 per day). I’m ready sharpen my pencil, fill my fountain pen full of ink, and activate my watercolours. Are you?