I’m an Urban Sketcher…

Categories
-
-
Archives
Blog Stats
- 477,642 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: monochrome
Drink?
A glass of milk, mugs of tea, and a glass of water; late night drink sketches (more here). I’m still fascinated by the way that something so simple can be so tricky to get right; the combination of ellipses, curious lighting … Continue reading
Posted in coloured paper, domestic, from life, glass, gouache, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, objects
Tagged cup of tea, drawing cups and mugs, drawing ellipses, fountain pen sketches, glass of milk, glass of water, mug of tea, Rolling Stones, sketching at home, sketching drinks
1 Comment
55 passers by
I’ve added a new page to the blog, sharing books that are currently inspiring my sketching; the first is Hokusai’s Manga (‘manga’ originally meant ‘light drawings or sketches’). After copying some of his very simple but individual faces (bottom of post) I sat … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, brush pen, figures, from life, inks, Lexington grey, monochrome, people, sketching, street scene, urban, waterbrush
Tagged Bath streets, brush pen drawing, brush pen sketches, Hokusai manga, inspired by Hokusai, lexington grey sketch, quick face sketches, simple face drawings, sketching passers by, street sketching, urban sketching, Van Morrison
Leave a comment
Wiry views
Drawn at dusk, sat on the bottom steps of The Shrubbery (previously), looking down Harley Street in Bath. My eye was caught by the telephone wires and chimneys silhouetted against the winter sky. I was sorry that I didn’t get … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, buildings, cars, coloured ink, from life, grisaille, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, sky, street scene, urban, vehicles, waterbrush
Tagged Bath sketch, Bath street, chimney silhouettes, drawing cars, fountain pen sketch, Japanese cabling, overhead wires, rooftops sketch, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, sketching in ink, street scene sketch, telephone cables overhead, telephone wires, urban sketching, winter sky
3 Comments
The life of stuff
I’m looking forward to more outdoor sketching in Spring, but in the meantime here are some well worn shoes (previously), a phone recharging, utensils hanging in the kitchen, and a bag waiting by the door… Everyday domestic scenes, the stuff of … Continue reading
Posted in coloured ink, coloured paper, domestic, every day matters, from life, home, inks, kitchen, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, objects, waterbrush
Tagged domestic sketches, fountain pen sketching, ink in water-brush, James Booker, kitchen sketch, monochrome sketches, sketch of phone charging, sketch of shoes, sketch of shopping bag, sketching with Noodlers inks, waterproof inks
1 Comment
Two Dogs
First there’s Skip, who sat beside me while I sketched people on a beach in Tenby. She was poised and alert, watching a gap in the fence where a rat had just appeared and vanished, but I had to be quick! Then there’s 3 … Continue reading
Yet more toys
It’s cold and dark outside, but there are always toys to draw…. Here’s Henry (a mild mannered janitor), some Airfix 1:72 scale knights, a Playmobil vulture, a shire-horse, a grass-hopper, and The Thing from the Fantastic Four. Pencil, Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, … Continue reading
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 Bath Abbey, Bronze age skull, dog at feet of knight, drawing of skull, Edwin Starr, Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, memorials, Prince Albert, Robert Recorde, sketching in churches, sketching statues, St Mary's Tenby, statue of dog, tombs, urban sketching
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 Crosby Stills Nash and Young, drawing own hand, fountain pen sketching, left hand, my left hand, noodlers inks, sketching hands, sketching with coloured inks, Tom Jones
3 Comments
Him off the Teevee
TV is always a good source of faces to sketch, press pause and they’ll happily pose for as long as you need; I like the way the drawings tend towards caricature. There’s sometimes a bit of lens/screen distortion on archive clips, and I … Continue reading
Posted in brush pen, coloured paper, inks, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, people, sketching, television
Tagged Chef Oberoi, Dr Sam Willis, faces on tv, fast sketches of faces, fountain pen sketches, noodlers inks, Otis Redding, Peter Sarstedt, Sammy Davis Jr, sketching from the tv
1 Comment
On the beach #3
A final batch of monochromes from Tenby’s beaches. First the tractor that pulls a mobile jetty up and down the beach in time with the tides (here’s a similar beach-tractor in Aberporth), with sight-seers returning from a boat trip to Caldey Island. … Continue reading
Posted in beach, boats, brush pen, clouds, coloured ink, coloured paper, from life, holiday, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, sea, Tenby, vehicles, Wales
Tagged beach tractor, beach-combing, Caldey Island, eroded rocks, mobile jetty, monochrome sketches, piddocks, Primal Scream, seaside sketching, Tenby harbour, tractor, urban sketching
4 Comments