Sketching In A Target-Rich Environment

Every year Quebec City holds the Festivale de Nouvelle France.  It is a celebration of the French landing here and setting up shop.  It’s a celebration of French culture.  It’s a celebration of traditional foods.  And it’s a heck of a good excuse for adults to dress up in costumes and roam the streets of old Quebec.

It’s also a great opportunity for sketchers who want to sketch people dressed as peasants, royalty, pirates, military, indians, and vendors.  I was a peasant myself – a peasant with a pen and a sketchbook.

I’m not very good at this kind of sketching.  Generally your subject is in a crowd of people and you have only a very short time to capture their geometry.  Once done, you’ve got a variable, though always short period of time, to fill in the details from a subject that’s moving constantly, often away from, blending back into the crowd.  Here are a few of my attempts; it sure was fun.