Start with Silhouettes: A Simple Approach to Drawing People

This mid-month post shares one of my favorite beginner-friendly ways to sketch people, adapted from my Urban Sketching handbook. If you’re gearing up to sketch lots of people this summer, you might also be interested in my 4-week-long, online people-sketching workshop, starting next week!

When sketching people from life, it helps to keep it simple because they might leave anytime! Sketching in silhouettes lets you stop at a quick shape and call your sketch done. Read on for a step-by-step process.

You Will Need: A sketchbook or loose paper, a pencil or pen, watercolor or markers in shades of gray, a white marker or white gouache

Ideal place to sketch: Visit your local café and take a seat toward the back, facing the front windows. If you’re conscious of drawing in public, this is a relatively quiet place to sit. But more importantly, looking toward the windows simplifies everything into backlit shapes, almost devoid of detail, which is exactly what you want!

STEP 1: Look at a table with a person (or a couple of them) silhouetted against the window. Even seated people move a lot!, so try to pick a gesture that the person will return to again and again. Using your marker or paint, color in the silhouette, observing it’s contours. Add shapes to this silhouette to create a scene, like tables, chairs, and cups. Pro tip: Use the grid created by the window frame and/or the line of the table to connect and frame your sketch.

STEP 2: Using your pen or pencil, add some details, suggesting a few instead of drawing them all. Step back and take a look at your sketch: you captured people in a café in a quick sketch!
Pro tip: Leaving some of the original silhouette shape without a bounding line keeps your sketch from feeling too tight.

OPTIONAL STEPS: Got more time or want more detail?
You can block in smaller, darker shapes over the first silhouette to create more volume. To finish up, use a gel pen or white gouache to add the light you see at the edges of your backlit silhouette.
Pro tip: It’s easy to overdo darks and highlights, so add them sparingly!

One last tip: You could always try this from a photo. If you’re not comfortable drawing in public yet, but want to try this from life, perhaps there’s a book reader or TV watcher in your home? Anyone who will stay still for a while is fair game!

If you give this technique a shot, I’d love to see your sketches!

4-session workshop with feedback. Join live OR via a recording each week
May 21st to June 11th, 2026, 9am to 11am California time.
I run only one session of this workshop each year. Sign up now and you’ll be confidently sketching people by summer!
* you DO NOT need to attend live. Recording of session will reach you by end of each day, so you can watch it and do the the exercises and send them in for review.

This 4-week online workshop will get you feeling confident and excited about sketching people-centric stories. A big part of the workshop is a deep review of the homework you submit each week, so more important than joining live is setting aside 1 to 2 hours for the practice assignments each week.
More detail here:
https://sketchaway.wordpress.com/2026/03/23/online-workshop-people-alive-sketches-full-of-life-2026-edition/
Read the details already? Go directly to Sign up here: https://buy.stripe.com/aFa8wPgIf3YK5rz88M4ko03

This link has all the details you need. Don’t wait too long to sign up!
Gateway to India Workshop(s), 2027

Our next online sketching session for the group is on Friday May 22nd, and we’re taking our inspiration from this sketch I did of the view from an office building.

We’re tackling the challenge of sketching the sort of industrial and ultra-modern cityscapes that feel impossible to render loosely and in glorious color. I’m really looking forward to all the different solutions we will come up with!

If you think you will enjoy sketching challenges like this one, join us by upgrading your membership at the link below. (You can join live or will receive a recorded video of the session.)