Category Archives: body

Analogue selfies

Um, here goes… thirty self-portraits done over the last few years, usually late evening when I can’t find anything else to sketch to keep up the daily habit… I’m really quite a cheery soul, but the combination of staring into a mirror, and … Continue reading

Posted in body, clothing, comparisons, faces, figures, self-portrait, sketching, watercolour sketch | Tagged , , , , | 15 Comments

mostly Greek

More sketches of classical statuary, mostly from the ongoing ‘Defining Beauty‘ exhibition at the British Museum, which is so full of wonderful stuff that I ended up doing very fast drawings with a marker pen, out of sight of the … Continue reading

Posted in body, coloured paper, exhibitions, figures, London, monochrome, museum, objects, pencil, sculpture, statues | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Ink brush sketching

Here’s another collection of people in town, this time a monochrome set,  done with a water-brush filled with dilute ink for speed. They were sketched one afternoon while sat outside a cafe in early Spring, hence the scarves and big coats. The last of the … Continue reading

Posted in Bath, body, brush pen, clothing, Feet, figures, inks, Lexington grey, monochrome, people, people watching, street scene, urban, urban sketching, waterbrush | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Hands, again

My hands, family member’s hands, stranger’s hands on trains, and hands on porcelain figures. Complicated miniature landscapes of curves, shadows, contours and foreshortenings that make regular appearances in my sketchbooks. As individual and expressive as a face, and always a challenge. No … Continue reading

Posted in body, collections, coloured ink, coloured paper, family, hands, monochrome, people, people watching, self-portrait | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Waiting in town

A bus queue lined up alongside Bath Abbey, and more tourists sat on benches (previously, and here). Drawing directly with ink means ‘mistakes’ are visible, recording the process of feeling out where the lines need to go. Usually I just restate the line, … Continue reading

Posted in Bath, body, buildings, figures, from life, inks, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, people, street scene, technique, urban, waiting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2015! This blog started two years ago and now gets about 50 visitors a day, so many thanks for your ongoing interest in my hobby. After sketching every day for almost four years I’ve settled to a particular set of resources, mostly fountain … Continue reading

Posted in body, coloured ink, from life, hands, inks, Lexington grey, line drawing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

In Memoriam…

Tombs, memorials and statues are another great source of patient models for sketching, so here are seven monochrome examples spanning three thousand years to finish 2014.  ‘Memento Mori’ or ‘Memento Vivere’ depending on your mood in the run up to the … Continue reading

Posted in body, collections, coloured ink, coloured paper, death, inks, line drawing, monochrome, monument, sculpture, skeleton, urban | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

My left hands…

…eleven of them this time, in a range of media. It’s a very reliable model, always there when I’m stuck for something to draw at the end of a long (Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young and Jones!) day, increasingly familiar, but with a fairly … Continue reading

Posted in body, collections, coloured ink, coloured paper, every day matters, from life, hands, inks, line drawing, monochrome, self-portrait, sketching | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Ow, my head hurts

Two bisected heads; first a pickled crocodile at the Grant Museum in London (tiny and old but very lovely), and then an anatomical model human at the Tokyo Museum of Emerging Science (large and modern, where I saw all the … Continue reading

Posted in animal, body, coloured ink, death, exhibitions, from life, inks, Japan, line drawing, monochrome, museum, skulls | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

I, Robert

Some robot/robert sketches from Japan, mostly at the Tokyo Museum of Emerging Science. First some animatronic manikin heads that nod and change expression empathetically when you speak into a microphone. They’re looking down on Asimo, the museum’s star attraction, named after Isaac Asimov, … Continue reading

Posted in body, coloured paper, from life, hands, inks, Japan, Lexington grey, line drawing, pencil, people, robots, Uncategorized, urban | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment