Sketching People: Techniques and Takeaways from the Book

I’ve always loved drawing people, especially in public settings like parks, zoos, or cafés. But when I started getting more serious about urban sketching, I realized how difficult it was to capture people quickly and naturally without making them look stiff or cartoonish. That’s when I picked up Sketching People: An Urban Sketcher's Manual to Drawing Figures and Faces by Lynne Chapman.

If you're like me—comfortable sketching buildings, trees, or animals, but hesitant about adding people to your drawings—this book can be a real breakthrough. It’s not a traditional figure drawing book. It doesn’t make you memorize muscle groups or sit through academic proportions.

Instead, it’s about observing real people in real spaces and finding ways to tell stories with their gestures, posture, clothing, and context. It’s a book that makes drawing people feel more human and less technical.

Key Points

• It demystifies drawing people in public: Chapman offers practical strategies for working quickly, dealing with movement, and handling self-consciousness.
• It emphasizes personality over perfection: The goal isn’t to draw flawless bodies or faces—it’s to capture a mood, a moment, or a story.
• It complements urban sketching beautifully: This book helps fill your street scenes, cafés, and parks with life and character.

Sketching People: A Book That Makes It Less Scary

When I first flipped through the pages of Sketching People, I felt a genuine sense of relief. Chapman doesn’t write like a teacher; she writes like a fellow sketcher who has spent hundreds of hours figuring out how to draw people without overthinking it. The tone is conversational, honest, and even funny at times. She acknowledges the awkwardness of staring at strangers and the common fear that people will get upset if they catch you sketching them. That alone made me feel seen.

She includes tips I hadn’t considered, like sitting with your sketchbook at chest level to be less conspicuous or choosing locations where people are likely to linger, like transit stations or cafés. It’s this kind of real-world insight that separates this book from others I’ve read. It’s not just about technique—it’s about building confidence.

Tools, Techniques, and Courage

Chapman starts with the basics of setting up your urban sketching kit, but she keeps it simple. A pen, a sketchbook, maybe a waterbrush, and some colored pencils or a travel watercolor set. There’s no pressure to build a massive art supply collection. Her approach reminded me of my own suggestions for putting together a compact urban sketching kit without overthinking it.

The book then moves into different strategies for sketching people from life. One I found especially helpful was the idea of drawing people from behind. Chapman notes that drawing someone’s back is a great way to practice without feeling invasive. It also helps you focus on posture, body language, and clothing—things that are just as expressive as a face.

Another big takeaway for me was learning to work in layers. She describes using quick pencil lines to block in posture, then refining with pen or color. One technique she shares is gently hatching colors over one another, then blending softly with a waterbrush—letting the viewer’s eye do the rest of the work. I started experimenting with this approach in cafés, and it instantly made my sketches feel more vibrant and layered.

For those curious about other approaches to urban sketching, you might want to explore my posts on watercolor sketching or how I gather urban sketching reference photos for practice.

Fast Drawing, Real Character

What I loved most about Sketching People is its emphasis on gesture and character. Chapman doesn’t want you to get bogged down in details. She encourages you to capture the feel of a person first—their slouch, the tilt of their head, the way they rest one foot on a stool. That’s the story.

This idea is echoed in her suggestion to fix one part of the body—like the torso—and allow other parts, like the arms and head, to shift and move in different versions on the same figure. That way, you can capture multiple movements in a single sketch without starting over. It felt a bit like animating on the page.

She also shares how focusing on small elements—like the folds of a sleeve, a watch strap, or the curl of a hand—can anchor your sketch and make it more believable. In fact, there’s an entire section where she talks about how zooming in too close on the details helped her notice things she would’ve otherwise missed, even if the overall composition suffered. That kind of honest reflection really resonated with me.

If you want to explore gesture drawing and people more deeply, check out my post on urban sketching people. It builds on some of the same concepts from this book and includes exercises I developed to help loosen up your lines.

What This Book Does Well

Here’s where Sketching People really shines:

• Courage and mindset: Chapman normalizes the awkwardness and shares how to build up confidence over time.
• Stylistic diversity: The book features a range of urban sketchers besides Chapman. It helped me realize that there’s no single “correct” way to draw people.
• Practical examples: Whether she’s sketching a sleeping passenger on a train or a couple deep in conversation at a café, Chapman shares how she adapted her process to the moment.

She also offers solid advice about how to avoid drawing people who are likely to move quickly. For example, she suggests avoiding people who are checking their phones (they’ll likely leave soon), and instead looking for folks eating, reading, or waiting for a train.

Where It Falls Short

This isn’t a how-to-draw-faces book. If you're looking for step-by-step breakdowns of noses, eyes, or facial anatomy, this won’t give you much of that. While she does touch on facial features, it’s more from a stylistic and expressive perspective than a technical one.

Also, the book is relatively short—128 pages—and not filled with exercises. If you want something more hands-on, with structured practice, you might want to pair it with a course or additional resources. I’d recommend starting with my broader drawing tutorial section or diving into the urban sketching course I created, which offers step-by-step lessons for both beginners and intermediate sketchers.

How It Changed My Approach

Before reading Sketching People, I was hesitant to add figures to my street scenes. I’d finish a lovely drawing of a building or market and then freeze up when I thought about populating it. What if I messed up the proportions? What if it looked awkward? This book gave me the permission to be imperfect—and that was the breakthrough.

Now, when I sketch in public, I start with the people. I quickly rough in a couple of figures—just posture and basic shapes—and then build the background around them. This simple shift has helped me make more lively, compelling scenes.

I’ve also become a better observer. I watch how someone’s coat folds as they sit, how they hold a coffee cup, or the way their head tilts when listening. Those details make a drawing feel alive. And when I want to practice at home, I turn to my growing collection of urban sketching ideas or reference photos for warm-ups.

Similar Books Worth Exploring

If you enjoy this book, I’d also recommend:

• Drawing Expressive People: Great if you want more figure-focused guidance.
• The Urban Sketching Handbook: People and Motion: Focuses on capturing dynamic movement.
• The Urban Sketcher: A broader book that includes people but also architecture and scenes.