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I am primarily a landscape painter but often what I try to capture is little slices and fleeting moments of life.  When it's the case, the landscape sets the stage for "little" figures I put in my painting.  I think these figures help create a wonderful story, and I like telling the story through their movements and body language.  Needless to say, it depends on how closely or remotely I use the landscape as a backdrop for the figures, but most of the time, the size of these people must be depicted proportionately small in a painting.  So they may be just blobs or dots of colors.

No matter how small they may be, the challenge is that figures have to look natural, showing different poses or at least suggesting varied movements.  This is important for the interplay between landscape and narrative to be established in a painting and make a stronger visual statement together.

I practice drawing movements and poses of figures as often as I can (See some of the examples below).  When I do, I do not spend a lot of time but try to capture the essence of a person in a particular setting by just focusing on the form and tones.  I cannot stress the importance of an exercise like this, and how useful it is when I need a certain pose in my painting later on.  I think anyone can find a few minutes of free time out of their hectic life - at a cafe, in a waiting room, on a train, during a commercial break, etc.  If you would like to make figures look natural in your work, observe poses and do little sketches often.  These efforts will pay off.

Figure sketches below were created by Keiko Tanabe, with W&N Water Colour Markers (Prussian Blue Hue & Yellow Ochre) on W&N paper for W&N Water Colour Marker (6x8 inches/15x20 cm).

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