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: people watching
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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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
Oxford faces
I’ll follow Stuart’s advice and post something cheerier and less morbid (mostly). So here’s a range of faces seen on a day trip to Oxford, most from the wonderful Ashmolean Museum, which I’ve posted about before. They span the whole history of portraiture, … Continue reading
Posted in body, brush pen, faces, grisaille, ink brush, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, Oxford, people watching, sculpture, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Ashmolean museum, Fayum mummy portrait, Max Greger, museum sketching, sketch of man asleep on train, sketching in Oxford, train sketching, urban sketching
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54 people, mostly seated, and 2 dogs
During the Summer holidays I binged on sketching the general public in Bath, my default approach to ‘urban sketching’. I enjoy the seasonal differences: sunglasses, shady hats and bare arms in Summer; compared to high collars, long coats and wooly hats in Winter! … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, brush pen, clothing, comparisons, figures, ink brush, Lexington grey, monochrome, people watching, seasonal, sketchcrawl, technique, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Bath sketch-crawl, drawings of seated figures, ink brush sketching, seasonal differences, sketching figures, sketching in Bath, The Mynabirds, urban sketching, urban sketching technique
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At the fair again
Carters Steam Fair (“100 smiles per hour!“) have been back to our local park. I didn’t draw the Steam Boats, as promised last time, but I did try sketching the merry-go-round horses; this was tricky as they kept setting off again every 2 … Continue reading
Posted in animals, Bath, coloured paper, fairground, figures, line drawing, park, people watching, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Carter's Steam Fair, fairground sketches, merry-go-round horses, Ride, sketch of merry go round, sketch of photographers, sketch of plein air painter, sketching at the fair, urban sketching
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Back in the city
“Hey, I am just a city boy, I’m really not the country kind, I miss the city streets and the neon lights. See the train comin’ round the bend…” The first sketch is a passenger on a train back to the city (Bath, not … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, cafe, figures, hands, line drawing, people watching, trains, urban sketching, waiting
Tagged cafe sketch, fountain pen sketches, seated figures, sketching in Bath city, sketching people in the city, sketching people on train, sketching people using phones, urban sketching, Velvet Underground
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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 brush pen urban sketching, drawing walking feet, sketches from a cafe, sketches of people passing by, sketching in Bath, sketching people on the move, The Monochrome Set, urban sketching people, water-brush filled with ink
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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