These are some things I have learnt while sketching on public transport. Hope you enjoy!
1. Be very friendly, smile and relax. People around have enough stress already, don't add to it.
2. Be thankful, if someone admires your sketches, always be ready to say a hearty, 'Thank you'
3. Be free to sketch openly, when I started out, I think for my first 7 years I normally had to hide and avoid people noticing me. But now from experience I have learnt to just do it in the open, it works! That's how I got to do a workshop with students on the tube-sketching right there and they were all learning and sharing the process.
4. People really want to know why we sketch. Be sure to have a ready answer available!
5. If anyone objects to you sketching them, simply stop, people are not all the same.
6. If there are children, sketch them, if possible, give them the sketch-it really puts a smile on their face and makes their day!
7. Sleeping commuters are the best to sketch if you are just starting out and still feel timid.
8. Have a bag or some sort of support to rest your sketchbook on. It helps to give your sketchbook a good support.
9. If someone really gets personal and asks, why are you sketching me? Make sure you make it clear first that it's nothing personal but that you are what you are and just sketch people, hand over your sketchbook to them and let them see all you have done in the past and then explain all the reasons why you do it with smiles, enthusiasm and passion!
10. Finally, sketching on public transport is a great habit- I have never had a dull moment while on public transport except the days in which I forgot my sketchbook. On days like that I still end up sketching on newspaper, my books or anything available.
SPECIAL QUOTE
"When you are not painting, devote as much time as you can to drawing. Buy yourself a sketchpad of good sturdy drawing paper and draw faces whenever you have a spare moment--friends, family, strangers. drawing is not only fun in itself, but it's the best way to study the most fascinating and varied of all subjects: the human head."From the book, "Portraits in Oil" by Wendon Blake and George Passantino