I’m an Urban Sketcher…

Categories
-
-
Archives
Blog Stats
- 472,390 hits
Gallery
Tags
- bamboo dip pen
- bamboo dip pen sketches
- Bath
- Bath Abbey
- brush-pen sketching
- brush pen
- cafe sketching
- city
- coloured paper
- daily drawing
- De Atramentis inks
- dip pen
- every day matters
- fountain pen
- fountain pen sketch
- fountain pen sketches
- fountain pen sketching
- ink brush sketches
- ink brush sketching
- Istanbul
- Kuretake #8
- Lexington grey
- Lexington grey ink
- Manchester Symposium
- marker pen
- monochrome
- noodlers inks
- objects
- people
- sketching in Bath
- sketching people
- Stockholm
- Talking Heads
- The Clash
- The Kinks
- urban sketching
- urban sketching kit
- urban sketching technique
- Venice
- white gelly roll pen
Blogroll
- Antonia Santolaya/Enrique Flores A chance to browse through 26 travel sketchbooks. Lots of fresh watercolour, ink and pencil location pictures.
- Buttnekkiddoodles Don Colley’s blog, sharing fabulous brush-pen drawings of people and much else. He’s a big fan of Pitt Artist brush pens.
- Danny Gregory His book ‘The Creative License’ got me sketching, and his other books have helped to keep me going. He has a wonderfully loose style, using dip-pens, saturated colour inks etc.
- Handprint Exceptionally comprehensive information on watercolour paints and equipment. Exhaustive details on pigments, translucency, comparing brands etc. Essential viewing for the true obsessive.
- James Gurney A mine of information on ‘plein air’ painting and sketching from the author of ‘Dinotopia’. Daily posts, always interesting.
- Nina Johansson Stockholm based urban sketching, with lovely clarity and glowing colours. Lots of useful information on sketching kit that helped to get me started.
- Russel Stutler Lots of very useful information on brush pens, palettes, sketching techniques. Based in Japan.
- Steven Reddy Great use of pen drawing and grey ink washes, sometimes combined with clear colour on top.
- The Sketching Forum Informal sharing of ideas, techniques, pictures and general chat about sketching. Set up by Russ Stutler.
- Urban Sketchers A constant parade of individual responses to the challenge of urban sketching. Always good for some inspiration, a new approach to try…
Category Archives: body
Skulls
A bit late for Halloween, but here are some recent skull sketches. The first is of the full-size medical model that I’ve drawn many times before. I love its tricky curves and deep hollows, and the brown and blue inks combine to … Continue reading
Posted in animal, body, coloured ink, death, fruit, inks, Japan, Lexington grey, monochrome, skulls
Tagged ape skull, different views of an object, drawings of skulls, fountain pen sketches, human skull, macaque skull, monochrome sketches, Noodlers inks for sketching, sketching in ink, skull netsuke, The Kinks
1 Comment
Digital art
Lots more fingers and toes, all drawn late in the evening when there’s nothing else around to sketch. Strange to see my hands age so dramatically as the drawings become more detailed, with more lines and shading… (A range of pens and inks, … Continue reading
‘How do you get to Carnegie Hall?’
Dilute Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, water-colour, A6 – 20 minutes Here’s Matthew Syed presenting at a conference I went to recently. He’s a journalist, former UK table-tennis champion, and the author of ‘Bounce’ where he explains the importance of ‘purposeful practice’, and how … Continue reading
Posted in body, clothing, from life, hands, Lexington grey, line drawing, people, sequential, sketching, technique
Tagged blogging, Bounce, conference, daily practice, Danny Gregory, from life, improving, lecturing, Matthew Syed, sketching, standing figure, Woody Guthrie
1 Comment
Buskers
Here are two of the many Bath buskers. The first is Ben Powell, an impeccable finger-style guitar player who I’ve sketched a few times before (see below). The weather’s been fine so he’s barefoot this time. I showed him the … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, body, clothing, Feet, from life, hands, line drawing, musical instrument, people, sketching, street scene, urban, white pen
Tagged Ben Powell, busker, fingerstyle, flip flop, fountain pen, guitar, guitar player, John Williams, singing, Steve Robinson
2 Comments
Black and white
Both done with white Gelly Roll pen, white Uni Posca brush pen, and water-brush with dilute Lexington grey ink, A6 – 25 minutes each A life-cast of William Blake’s head (bought many years ago from the National Portrait Gallery when … Continue reading
Posted in body, coloured paper, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, objects, sculpture, white marker pen
Tagged accumulation of lines, black paper, contour lines, creating volume, hand, life mask, plaster cast, The Pixies, Uni Posca brush pen, white gelly roll pen, William Blake
Leave a comment
Many hands
Drawing hands continues to be a challenge so here are some recent attempts. The first set was while watching TV, pausing the program and drawing any hands in the shot as fast as possible. The second is a range of … Continue reading
Posted in body, from life, hands, line drawing, monochrome, pencil, TV
Tagged Beastie Boys, Herge, left hand, oservational drawing, Tintin in Tibet, TV stills
5 Comments
Life and death #1
Some sketches of famous finds from Pompeii, recently on show at the British Museum in London. The exhibition contrasted Roman art that celebrated life, with plaster casts that documented agonising deaths. The death-casts are very emotive objects, both expressionist and … Continue reading
Posted in body, collections, death, exhibitions, from life, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, pencil
Tagged body casts, boxer pose, British Museum, death-cast, dogs, Hercules, mosaic, plaster casts, Pompeii, Roman art, Simon and Garfunkel, the muleteer, urinating
Leave a comment
People watching
Istanbullus sitting, walking, fishing, watching, on the phone, and waiting. Slowly learning to construct figure drawings out of lots and lots of curves. Fountain pen with carbon ink, Pigma 1mm black pen, water-brush with Lexington Grey ink, A5
Posted in body, brush pen, from life, Istanbul, line drawing, monochrome, people, sketching, urban, waiting
Tagged curves, figure drawing, fishing, Istanbullus, on the phone, people watching, Richard Hawley, sitting
Leave a comment
Park life
A warm and sunny Saturday in the park, people reading, chatting and sunbathing, covering the lawn in front of the Royal Crescent. A great chance to do lots of fast and simple figure studies of people at rest. Fountain pen and water-brushes with … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, body, from life, Lexington grey, monochrome, people, sketching, urban, waterbrush
Tagged figure studies, leisure, park, royal crescent, saturday in the park, Small Faces, Summer
4 Comments
‘Fail better’
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett A good description of learning to sketch, amongst other things, and my frequent attempts at drawing my left hand are an excellent example! So here’s the latest batch … Continue reading
Posted in body, from life, hands, inks, pencil, sketching, watercolour sketch
Tagged coloured ink water-brushes, Fail better, hatching, Samuel Beckett, The Replacements
1 Comment