I’m an Urban Sketcher…

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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: pencil
Feather and tea
A couple of sketches done using found/improvised resources during a trip to Grinda, the Stockholm island where I drew the 38 boats. The first was drawn using a dip-nib cut into the tip of a swan’s feather that I found (a bottle lid with … Continue reading
Posted in dip pen, from life, holiday, inks, kit, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, pencil, technique
Tagged Band of Horses, cutting a quill nib, dip pen, Ferry views, Grinda, improvised sketching resources, Lexington grey, monochrome sketch, quill nib, sepia sketch, sketching from life, swan feather, tea as wash
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38 boats
While in Stockholm we caught a ferry to Grinda, one of 30,000 (!) islands in the surrounding archipelago. We swam in the warm Baltic and I tried to sketch the many pleasure craft that passed. As most were going fairly fast I ended up with a collection … Continue reading
Take off, in-flight, landing
Scenes from a flight to Stockholm… A sketchy impression of the rolling patchwork landscape around Bristol airport as the plane took off, random images from a flight safety card (including a wildly optimistic ‘landing on water’), and planes waiting at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport under low … Continue reading
Posted in airplane, airport, landscape, line drawing, monochrome, pencil, sketching, Stockholm
Tagged airport sketch, Arlanda airport, in-flight drawing, landing on water, Lexington grey, Major Lazer, monochrome sketch, patchwork fields, plane safety card, simple figures, sketching planes, take off view
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Sketchcrawl
Lexington grey water-brush, pencil, white pastel, A5 – 30 minutes Here’s Jim busy drawing when six of us met up for a Bath sketchcrawl this weekend. One of the main motivations for starting this blog was to try and meet up … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, coloured paper, from life, hands, Lexington grey, monochrome, pencil, people, sketching, urban, watching
Tagged bench, hat, Jim, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, reclining chair, sketchcrawl, sketchers
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Rear windows #2
White Uni Posca brush-pen, pencil, white pastel, A5 – one hour over two days The back of the King’s Circus, Bath, drawn from a convenient bench outside the Fashion Museum. Standing in the middle of the Circus the circular terrace of symmetrical … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, buildings, coloured paper, from life, line drawing, monochrome, pencil, sketching, technique, urban, white pen
Tagged bench, chimney pots, circular buildings, drainpipes, drawing buildings, Kings Circus, Pop Muzik - M, rear windows, Tv aerial
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All together now…
Pencil, Lexington grey water-brush, water-colour, A6 – 20 minutes A small part of the excellent Mendip Male Voice Choir, pencil sketched while they sang ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ at All Saints Church in Weston, Bath. I added … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, clothing, from life, Lexington grey, line drawing, pencil, people, sketching
Tagged concert, groups, Mendip Male Voice Choir, Monty Python, old men, shirt and tie, singing, The Suzan
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At the fair
Pencil, white Gelly Roll pen, water-brush with dilute Lexington grey ink, gouache, A5 – 20 minutes pencil drawing at the fair, 20 minutes at home with the ink and gouache We’ve been away for the week (I’ll post some seaside sketches soon) and in … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, coloured paper, from life, gouache, park, pencil, trees, urban, vehicles
Tagged Beatles, brown paper, fairground, flags, helter skelter, Led Zeppelin, Lexington grey ink, pencil drawing, white gelly roll pen
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Night vision
Sketching at night presents some extra challenges; cold hands, low light, and increased self-consciousness (“What’s he up to…?”). So these two were done fast by the light of street lamps; the first while waiting for a bus in Larkhall (Streetview link), … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, buildings, from life, inks, Lexington grey, monochrome, night, pencil, urban, waiting
Tagged Larkhall, night sketching, Sesame Street, Stevie Wonder, street lamps, The Star Inn, Uni Posca brush pen, white gelly roll pen
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Royal visitor
My parents’ terrier, Queenie, came to stay for a couple of days during Christmas. She was an interesting subject to draw, especially her back legs, but easier to sketch when resting in her basket… Lexington grey water-brush and pen, white Uni … Continue reading
Posted in animal, brush pen, coloured paper, from life, home, line drawing, monochrome, pencil, pets, white marker pen
Tagged Badly Drawn Boy, dog, dog basket, Queenie, sleeping dog, terrier, Uni Posca brush pen
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Pedestrian
Another sketch done while walking, this time behind family members on a Christmas holiday walk. The light ink-wash was added back home. Pencil, Lexington grey water-brush, A7 – 2 minutes
Posted in family, from life, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, pencil, people, sketching, urban
Tagged Ash, pedestrians, walking sketch, winter walk
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