Mostly drawing

More inky people…

Posted on April 1, 2019 by Ed Mostly

All sketched in Bath, and all in bamboo dip-pen. From the top there’s Seb Guettier busking by the Baths, then Justin Towell busking by the Abbey, Saturday crowds observed from outside a cafe, and finally sketching amongst the chimneys up on the roof terrace at Hall and Wodehouse with Emily, Gome and Charlotte (pigeons and a helicopter overhead).

There are easier pens to use, but I keep returning to the idiosyncratic quirks and saturated lines of the bamboo dip-pen. I recommend trying one out as they’re very cheap, but make sure you smooth the tip with very fine sandpaper before using a shop-bought one or else scritchy scratchy dismay will result… (see also my modification to improve ink flow).

Posted in bamboo dip pen, Bath, buskers, monochrome, people, street scene, urban, urban sketching | Tagged bamboo dip pen sketches, sketching buskers, sketching in Bath, The Drifters, urban sketching | 2 Comments

Inky people

Posted on March 10, 2019 by Ed Mostly

Five recent sketches using a bamboo dip-pen for juicy inky lines (which go grey when you blot them). From the top there’s the Saturday market in Stroud (mmm, delicious Portuguese pastries), Seb Guettier busking by Bath Abbey (apologies for the shrinking legs and violin sized guitar case), Bath rugby supporters queuing for the bus home (they’d won), visitors to the Roman baths enjoying the world through tiny screens, and masked animal rights protesters showing scenes from abattoirs on tablets. All human life is here, well, some of it…

SMF364 St S19031012482 SMF364 St S19031012480 P1280970 P1290021 P1280821

Posted in bamboo dip pen, Bath, figures, people watching, urban, urban sketching | Tagged bamboo dip pen, sketching in Bath, sketching people, sketching street scenes, straight to ink, Top Cat, urban sketching | Leave a comment

See-through city

Posted on February 13, 2019 by Ed Mostly

Three attempts to capture the animation of Bath city centre, drawing people as they pass by, near or far, focussing mainly on the faces and posture and not worrying about overlaps. I was sat down, so some of the closer figures loom over the others. I drew the outlines of buildings, signs and pavements first to give me a loose structure to place the pedestrians in, and then just settled into people watching and bamboo dip-penning!

P1280832 P1280846 SMF364 St S19021219140

Posted in bamboo dip pen, Bath, buildings, people watching, street scene, urban, urban sketching | Tagged bamboo dip pen, Bath sketching, Pulp, sketching people, street scene sketch, urban sketching | 3 Comments

City evenings

Posted on January 16, 2019 by Ed Mostly

Sorry for the lack of recent posts; there’s no particular excuse, just the usual Christmas busy-ness and all the rest. I was still out sketching though, so here are four evening scenes in central Bath. Winter’s a busy time for Bath with a very popular Christmas ~~shed~~ chalet market attracting thousands of extra visitors. In the first two I slightly tilted the scene to be able to show more of the people and the streets stretching away into the distance. The third was from an upstairs cafe, so no tilting needed! (The first’s drawn with a fude fountain pen, the second in pencil, and the last two with bamboo dip-pen)

P1280763 arnos vale (67)

Posted in Bath, buskers, people, street scene, urban, urban sketching | Tagged city evening sketches, Dinosaur Jr, fude pen sketches, sketches of busy streets, sketches of street scenes, sketching in Bath, urban sketching | 5 Comments

39 more analogue selfies…

Posted on November 23, 2018 by Ed Mostly

…all done late evening to keep up the daily drawing habit/obsession, and all drawn with bent-nib fude pens, great for both strong blocks of shady ink and fine lines for hatching… (Many of these have been posted to this fun group of fellow self-sketchers)

…and 168 others from the past few years!

Posted in collections, daily drawing, fude pen, self-portrait | Tagged analogue selfies, daily drawing selfies, fude pen sketching, Self Portrait Sundays, The Beatles | 47 Comments

Analogue and digital in London

Posted on November 13, 2018 by Ed Mostly

Sketches from a trip to London, including trying out a new entry level iPad with Apple Pencil for drawing (I’m using Paper by 53 as the sketching app; it’s very basic in options so not too distracting with choices, but responsive enough to be expressive).

The view on the train to London. Resisting the urge to ‘undo’ is tricky with the iPad. Years of sketching in ink helps, but…

Paper.Sketches.4

Looking down from the stairs that wrap around the central rotunda in the British Museum (sketched with the Confucius fude pen). The totem poles were being carved in 1850, around the time the museum was being built. arnos vale (66)

The view looking South from Parliament Hill sketched on the iPad. It looks a bit washed out, and I’ve been using black for my lines since then. Paper.Sketches.2

(Here’s the same view sketched in bamboo dip-pen with watercolour last summer…) P1280075 (2)

A few individuals seen about town, sketched on the iPad.

My reflection in the window opposite, on a rattling and swaying tube train from Oxford Circus to Paddington, on the way home (Sailor fude pen). arnos vale (15)

And finally fellow passengers and pigeon waiting in Paddington station (sketched with the trusty fude pen)…

Posted in bamboo dip pen, iPad sketches, London, museum, trains, urban, urban sketching | Tagged British Museum sketch, iPad urban sketching, Parliament Hill sketch, sketch of totem poles, sketch on London view, The Jam, urban sketching | 7 Comments

Guns, drawn

Posted on November 11, 2018 by Ed Mostly

Two original pistols from World War One. They could have faced each other in combat on a battlefield, now meeting in peacetime(ish) one hundred years later on a table in Shropshire, while I drew them with a bamboo dip-pen. A German officer’s Luger automatic, and an English officer’s Webley revolver. Very different guns to handle; the Luger is mechanically sophisticated, light, well balanced, while the Webley’s basic, heavy, and tips forward. But both lethal, and now out off action.

arnos vale_0001 (39)