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: sculpture
Busted
A fine pair of portrait busts from the upper floor of Bath’s Victoria Gallery (you can see both of them in the linked photo). First there’s Sir Cloudesley Shovell (honestly), a famous C17th admiral and guitarist. Then George 3rd, king of Britain for 59 … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, coloured ink, coloured paper, exhibitions, faces, figures, inks, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, museum, objects, sculpture
Tagged Bath gallery, drawing sculpture, fountain pen sketching, George Harrison, King George 3rd, noodlers inks, Sir Cloudesley Shovell, sketching in galleries, sketching portrait busts, sketching technique, urban sketching, Victoria Art Gallery
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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
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Remembrance
It’s the 11th day of the 11th month, so here’s a bas-relief memorial tablet in Salisbury Cathedral, placed in memory of Edward Tennant, a young officer and poet killed on the Somme in 1916. It includes touching testimonies to his life and times; “when things … Continue reading
Posted in brush pen, coloured ink, death, inks, line drawing, monochrome, monument, sculpture
Tagged 1st World War memorial, Armistice Day, bas relief memorial, Edward Tennant, John Singer Sargent, Officer died on the Somme, Remembrance, Salisbury Cathedral, sketch of a sculpture, Talking Heads, young officer
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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
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Dragon
A quick monochrome sketch of a three piece dragon sculpture at the bottom of the garden. I’ve drawn it before, concentrating on the head section, but this time wanted to show the full serpentine body, apparently swimming through the ground. 1mm … Continue reading
Posted in animal, garden, home, Lexington grey, monochrome, sculpture
Tagged Basement Jaxx, dragon, serpentine
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@ Bristol #2
Some more from @Bristol. Two sketches overlapping on one page creating an odd couple; a gorilla skeleton and a large model of Morph, a 1970’s children’s animation classic from Aardman. Each sketch took about 10 minutes, and that’s a paint accident, not … Continue reading
Posted in animals, collections, exhibitions, from life, museum, sculpture, skeleton, sketching
Tagged @ Bristol, Aardman, bones, cold nose, gorilla, Gorillaz, Morph, skull, the Odd Couple, thermal imaging
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Life and death #2 Mostly dogs
More sketches from the recent British Museum Pompeii exhibition. First the famously contorted death-cast of a guard dog, followed by a mosaic door sign (“Cave canem”- beware of the dog) found in the same villa; it’s hard not to see the sign as a portrait … Continue reading
Posted in animals, collections, death, exhibitions, from life, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, pencil, sculpture, sketching
Tagged British Museum, British Museum Pompeii exhibition, cave canem, death-cast, dogs, guard dog, hounds, House of the stags, hunting, Pompeii, stag, Talking Heads
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Headlines
Revisiting cross-hatching by drawing a concrete dragon’s head at the bottom of the garden. I’m learning to keep the initial guidelines fairly fine, unlike in the Skansen picture, so they don’t unbalance the overall effect. I’m also starting to understand … Continue reading
Posted in garden, hatching, kit, line drawing, monochrome, objects, sculpture, sketching
Tagged cross-hatching, dragon, head, Lamy Safari
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Swanage
‘The Voyager’ by Tessa Farmer, one of several sculptures temporarily in Bath Abbey. This one’s in a small side chapel, with a collection of ants, wasps and tiny winged figures riding on its back. It’s also carrying a dead mouse … Continue reading
Posted in animals, Bath, Birds, from life, pencil, sculpture
Tagged ants, Bath Abbey, bird in flight, swan, T-Rex
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Venetian cadavers
More cheery sculptures from Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice (see previous post), this time on the Giovanni Pesaro monument. These two figures are slightly hidden in the shadows, looking like coy zombies emerging from the shower. Pilot V7 pen and … Continue reading
Posted in death, Frari, monochrome, monument, sculpture, skeleton, Venice
Tagged death, Frari, monochrome, sculpture, Venice, zombie
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