#OneWeek100People 2025 : All Posts Collected
DAY ONE:
Hey everybody! It’s March! 2025! I’m somewhat shocked to note this is the 9th year of #OneWeek100People. This means *next* year is kind of a big deal.
There’s very very very few things in life I’ve stuck with for more than ten years – besides drawing.
Every year my drawings get more interesting to me, but harder and harder for me to explain what I’m doing.
“I just paint them?”
So: what can I say about this one?
Color Blocks: Every major shape in the sketch is one color, but all the colors are dirty’ed up with the neighboring colors.
Draw with the Edges: The background shape cuts around the white faces – wet on dry – so they have a razor edge. The colored shape is drawing the head in negative. The weird orange dots in the background are only there so I can get away with flagging his head in bright orange. It makes it look like the orange is on purpose.
Work Fast for Blending: I work fast so that shapes can bleed into each other ( her pant leg for instance ). But I don’t let important edges touch; like between his and her jackets. If that one edge had smudged you lose the overlapping figures.
Reserved Whites: This year was using a nice big brush. I don’t know, like a #10 round? Male Pinky Finger Sized. It’s fun because it’s so fast, it hold so much paint, and you have to make the reserved whites by instinct. I think of the whites as internal edges. The white on his shoulder is a pretty great mark – it shows you what is an upper surface, but it also indicates where his bulky jacket sleeve insets into the shoulder, and it draws the shape of his hood. All the other small whites in his torso are doing similar work, describing folds in the jacket sleeve. Not sure if you can tell; but they’re NOT drawn into the sketch. I outline shadow shapes in the sketch, but I try not to outline highlights anymore. A highlight with a line around it doesn’t work!
We just had a 125 year record snowstorm in Montreal; so this year it’s going to be all metro (subway) drawings. There’s next-to-nobody on the street; nobody is doing any activities outside. You can barely walk on the sidewalks downtown. So this year get ready for a lot of people-on-their-phones :)
By the way – who’s your favorite subway rider today? And why is it that amazing fellow in the fedora and shades. That guy brought the funk!
DAY TWO:
So, last couple Marathon’s I made a big deal about getting 100 in a day. But honestly; I don’t really do ink drawings any more? Like simple pen line, or anything monochromatic. I fished out the dip pens last year because I wanted speed to be the essence.
But the truth is, my line drawing had degenerated into spaghetti – because it only exists as a framework for color shapes.
I just love how you have infinite colors in the tiny paint box.
You know why I started with watercolor? Back in first year of Illustration school, they told us to go buy a set of 100 markers. I took one look at the price (and that was 40 years ago!) and said; no way. I’m not buying all these colors! Especially markers. You don’t click the cap down and five bucks worth of marker dries out in your bag.
How many of you have taken watercolors to figure drawing class? You know those timed poses? 3,5,10 minutes. If you don’t work fast, you won’t get accidental blending. And if you don’t have a time limit (like trying to get 33.3r drawings in one day) then you always slow down. (Because you think it makes your drawings better :)
I used to say ‘work one shape a time, so it stays wet and blends’ – but I think it’s more like 1.5 shapes at a time. Start the next one just a little bit too soon, so you can choose – wet-on-dry, vs, wet-on-damp. A hard edge, vs. a chance to blend.
Who’s your favorite today? I have to like the Urban Cowboy, The nurse who didn’t like me looking at her. Or the subway cop who definitely saw me acting suspicious. There is a whole generation of subway cops in Montreal who grew up playing Assassins’ Creed. They love the tied back hair and Viking beard :)
Day Three:
Come on right? The light on that bike rack was like being in a Christopher Nolan movie. I do this marathon every year to remind myself what I love about street sketching.
Keep moving and make your own luck.
Only time and patience will give you the gems.
So ok – I painted this one from a phone snap. (I’m way to honest for my own good! But I have to tell it like it is). Does that put the lie to what I’m saying? If I stood in the snowbank and painted it, would it be any different? It might have been MORE spontaneous :) It’s true. But I feel, in this case, I’m no different from a street photographer – except I develop my pictures in watercolor instead of lightroom.
Less is more! Some of my personal favorites are the simple silhouettes. There’s almost no technique to it. Just let the puddles merge in the shape, and wait just long enough to touch in some shadow.
If you stay with the same pigments year after year you’ll learn how far they float, and when is the right amount of dampness to try charging into a shape.
That one smiling fella was getting some great news on his phone. It’s a lot of fun trying to find good poses when nobody is doing anything. I snapped his pic because he was too good to pass up.
…
So I’m not going to show you the rest of the 100; I don’t want to bore you or embarrass myself with the bad ones. Let’s say it was very easy cut it down to the best third. Keep that in mind! if you do 100 drawings, your best 10, or your best 36 in this case, are going to look a LOT better than the whole pile.
It’s good for your morale to tear up half of what you do! When you look back on it later you’re much happier :)
Hope you’ve been doing the marathon too hey? Feel free to drop me a comment with your links! Maybe I’ll see you on Instagram? I’m off Facebook for Lent this year. Please keep using the hashtag so we can find each other!
DAY FOUR:
It’s always great when you finish your 100 and you can goof around for the rest of the marathon :)
I was looking around for fun things to draw, and found this exhibition Dressing up History at the McCord Stewart museum. It’s a collection of historic costumes, made in the late 1800’s, and worn at lavish costume balls held in Montreal.
I couldn’t help but think of Ophelia, looking at the dress laid out on the table.
I suppose this isn’t really ‘people drawing’ – as they’re just garments hanging on frames. A true urban Sketcher wouldn’t be allowed to take liberties with all these headless dressmakers dummies! They believe you must report what you see faithfully. (And I respect them for their dedication! But today I’m just having fun :)
I always find museum lighting so dramatic. Even the museum thinks it’s a little spooky. Every few minutes the lights would go out in the main hall, and they’d play music and project dancing ghosts on the walls.
Both these dresses reminded me of famous headless ladies. Maybe Anne Boleyn, and a girlish Marie Antoinette :)
Just as a side note for the artists out there; these were done on a cheap art-store house-brand sketchbook paper (unlike my real 100, which I did on small offcuts of cotton rag, in an effort to reduce the pile of paper scraps I have in the back room :)
As a result, I had to punch up the faded, washy colors, and tweak the contrast in photoshop – and even go back and do accents in India ink.
Back in the old days, I used to be plagued by watercolors being too pale. This can happen for a lot of reasons. Being too cheap to put out fresh paint each day. Using too much water. But also, it’s just the nature of sketchbook paper.
When cellulose paper has a lot of sizing, the color floats on top, rather than absorbing into the paper. This stops your sketchbook from getting soggy, and cuts down wrinkling (somewhat), but it can cause aggressive bleeding and/or hard edged puddles. Both of which you can see in these sketches today.
Back when I did a lot of sketchbooking, I was tuned up for this kind of sized-cellulose paper. I actually preferred it for many years. Today, I was really struggling! I’ve lost the instinct for it! Though, it’s already coming back. Ophelia was the last sketch of the day, and it mostly came out the way I wanted it.
But I did have three total failures which I had to tear up! I always rip up a truly bad painting :) It’s very gratifying :)
So for what it’s worth – that’s why some people choose a paper, and a brand of paints, and never never change what they use! For sure you should never go back to student grade :)
DAY FIVE:
Thanks everyone who participated! I hope y’all had a great time, I hope y’all did some drawings you’re excited about, and I hope you spent some time sketching with friends!
Next year will be the TENTH YEAR of #OneWeek100People! I’m really shocked to think about that :)
I’m going to have to think of something significant to do to mark that milestone.
Sometime before I die; I’m going to do 500 in a week; 100 a day for my self imposed five day week. That’s my crazy promise :) Maybe Year Ten will be the year! Keep in touch and let’s keep inspired for next year :)
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But wait! We’ll see you sooner than that!
Because it’s 30×30 in June! which is coming up sooner than you think! Mark your calendar if you want to run a REAL marathon with me!
Are you ready for One Painting a Day? Thirty Paintings in the Month of June?
I have done a lot of wandering in my time :) because that is how my brain works :) but this year it’s absolutely a watercolor year! I’m excited about some new ideas for watermedia – so we’ll see you then? Hope you’ll join us!
Citizen Sketcher 