These quick sketches are terrible but they're good enough to make the point that I have in mind, which is that most people draw the wrong thing when they go out sketchbooking.
If you draw people as individuals you'll end up as often as not with cliches: the middle-aged guy with a gut, the fat woman wearing tight clothes, the guy nodding off while he tries to read his newspaper, etc. That's because ordinary people people look pathetic when you draw them in isolation. They're glazed over from shopping or working. Your catching them at their worst.
Where people come alive is in conversation. That's where they become psychological and fleshed out. Take the fat woman. When she's talking she's no longer just a stereotype, she's a human being with a point to get across. She's more interesting.
Now the problem with this is that but people don't stay still when they talk. You have to draw your memory of what they looked like, which is hard, and an instant later you're diverted by the next pose. It's not a good way to turn out pretty drawings, but if you're lucky you might capture an interesting moment.
