I’m an Urban Sketcher…

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- bamboo dip pen
- bamboo dip pen sketches
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- Bath Abbey
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- daily drawing
- De Atramentis inks
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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: figures
…and one dog
Quick brush-pen sketches of anyone who caught my eye while I sat outside Bath Abbey, waiting for the shops to open last Sunday morning. I got faster as I sketched, focussing on eye-line angles and getting head/torso relationships right (scarves make … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, brush pen, figures, ink brush, Kuretake, Lexington grey, Manchester Symposium, people watching, street scene, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Bath Abbey, brush-pen sketching, fast sketches of people, ink-brush urban sketching, Jonny Cash and Kris Kristofferson, Kuretake #8, quick street figure sketching, sketching in Bath, urban sketching
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Perfect View
Read from top left to bottom right, six quick pencil and ink-wash sketches on grey paper (white sky and colour added at home) made while walking up Perfect View, dodging occasional passing cars and dog-walkers. The road looks rural, but is in … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, brush pen, comparisons, figures, journeys, Lexington grey, pencil, sequential, street scene, urban, urban sketching
Tagged dilute ink wash shadows, ink brush sketching, James Newton Howard, Lexington grey, Perfect View Bath, sequential sketch, sketch of walking up raod, sketching in Bath, streetview, urban sketching
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Busy-ness
A busy double-page sketch of a busy view, from upstairs at Picnic Cafe, this time looking down Upper Borough Walls; a typical Saturday afternoon in Bath, shoppers strolling and checking phones, seagulls soaring and me sketching. (The red phone boxes have been converted into … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, brush pen, buildings, cafe, figures, ink brush, Manchester Symposium, people watching, shoppers, street scene, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Bath, brush-pen sketching, ink brush sketching, Kuretake #8, Lexington grey, Manchester Symposium, Picnic cafe, sketch of busy street, sketching in Bath, The Clash, urban sketching
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Six pigeons
Sat on my habitual weekend sketching perch, the steps by the back-door to the Roman Baths, overlooking the paved square next to Bath Abbey. The people on the benches were the original focus for the sketch, and then the pigeons … Continue reading
Manchester Symposium
I’m very excited to have been selected to present a demo (using brush-pens for sketching) and a lecture (on the long and rich history of books about sketching) at this year’s Urban Sketchers International Symposium in Manchester. Yippee! Maybe see you there … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, brush pen, cafe, figures, ink brush, International Symposium, Lexington grey, people watching, shoppers, street scene, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Bobby Womack, brush-pen sketching, Kuretake #40, Manchester Symposium, Picnic cafe Bath, sketch of busy shoppers, sketch of street scene, sketching in Bath, urban sketching
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The quick(ish) and the dead(very)
Two double-page spreads from yesterday’s USk Bristol/South West sketchcrawl at Bristol Museum (15 sketchers, our best turn out yet!). Here are passengers at Bath railway station, a recreation of the Dignitas flat and the reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian face (both … Continue reading
Posted in Bristol, brush pen, cafe, death, faces, figures, museum, people watching, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Bristol Museum, brush pen sketches, David Bowie, Dignitas, museum sketching, sketch of hippo, sketch of people in cafe, sketch of skull, urban sketching, USk Bristol/South West
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Twilight
It’s either late afternoon or early evening. Lights are coming on but the sky is still reflected in the car windows, colour’s fading from the cars, buildings and people. That’s the back of the Royal Crescent silhouetted in the background, a … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, brush pen, drawing buildings, figures, ink brush, rooftops, street scene, twilight, Uncategorized, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Bath sketching, brush-pen sketching, ink brush sketching, Kuretake #8, Memory Tapes, sketch of street at twilight, street lamps, urban sketching
8 Comments
Winter crowds
Bath’s Christmas shoppers filling the wet streets (a festive carousel in the far distance), battling the wind and rain, pacing the pavements, queuing for the bus home, and generally milling around town. All sketched using my new best friend, the Kuretake #8 brush-pen, … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, brush pen, dogs, figures, ink brush, Lexington grey, people, street scene, urban, urban sketching
Tagged brush pen urban sketching, ink brush sketches, pavement, sketches of feet walking, sketches of people with umbrellas, sketches of shoppers, sketching in Bath, sketching street scenes, urban sketching
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Tenby people
The last few Summer sketches from Tenby. This time people-watching around the town, moving from fountain-pen to ink-brush for the key lines. I was using a fairly ‘blunt’ brush then (a well-worn detailer water-brush) filled with dilute ink, so the pictures weren’t as crisp as the … Continue reading
Posted in beach, brush pen, comparisons, figures, holiday, ink brush, monochrome, people, people watching, technique, Tenby, urban, urban sketching, Wales
Tagged brush pen sketches, Can, ink brush sketching, moving from pen to brush, sketches of people on holiday, sketches of people waiting, sketches of seated people, Sketching in Tenby, sketching people by the sea, using ink in a water-brush
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Beach life
Two scenes of Tenby beach-life, complete with seagull drones, ice-cream van, and parasols. The first was from the cliff top, the second from rocks at the base of the cliff, and each is followed by their pre-watercolour version. Finally the same view as … Continue reading