I’m an Urban Sketcher…
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Category Archives: sketching
68 feet
Commenting on my recent cafe sketches Chris said “How about a focus on feet and shoes for your next post? They drive me mad, and can make or break a quick sketch.” Be careful what you wish for… Here are all the … Continue reading
Posted in brush pen, cafe, coloured paper, Feet, from life, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, objects, sculpture, sketching, urban
Tagged cafe sketching, collection of feet, drawing feet, fountain pen sketch, Hokusai manga, ink sketches, Michelangelo's David, Ride, sketching sculpture, sketching shoes, urban sketching
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Street parking
More cars parked up on Bath streets. I didn’t use the acetate grid for these, but did have to work hard to get the relative size of the receding cars correct, to see what was there and not what I … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, cars, from life, Lexington grey, line drawing, sketching, street scene, urban, vehicles
Tagged Bath street sketch, drawing a street scene, drawing of line of cars, drawing what you see, fountain pen sketch, Public Enemy, receding cars, relative size, sketching cars, urban sketching
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Skullduggery
Some more of a favourite subject. This time the skulls are from a sheep (I think), and a fox (possibly). Whatever animals they used to be they offer beautiful mini-landscapes to sketch, with lots of hills, cliffs, valleys and caves. Their … Continue reading
Posted in animals, coloured ink, coloured paper, death, from life, Lexington grey, monochrome, sketching, skulls, white pen
Tagged animal skulls, drawing skulls, fountain pen sketch, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, noodlers inks, sketch challenge, sketch of sheep skull, sketching skulls
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Bootylicious
My trusty boots drawn last month after the first (very light) snowfall of the year. Below is an earlier sketch of them, showing the change in my approach over the last two years; moving from black felt-tip lines and watercolour, to fountain pen and dilute ink washes. … Continue reading
Posted in boots, coloured ink, coloured paper, comparisons, from life, inks, kit, sketching, watercolour sketch
Tagged Brasher Supalite boots, comparing sketch techniques, drawing boots, fountain pen sketches, Nirvana and Destiny's Child, sketch of boots, sketching with inks, walking boots
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Monochrome flames
A couple of mid-winter sketches, trying to capture the dancing shapes of a log fire. I drew ‘blind’, watching the flames to catch their individual fluid shapes, feeling out the lines with a pencil, and occasionally looking down at the page to get their location about right. They reminded me … Continue reading
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
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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
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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
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On the beach #2
Another couple of coastal sketches from Tenby. First a collection of people on the beach (both in full technicolor and the original on location line-drawing), followed by the same beach seen from a cliff-top bench, with nautical railings obscuring the view. Beaches are … Continue reading
Posted in beach, coloured ink, every day matters, from life, holiday, inks, line drawing, people, sketching, watching
Tagged beach, cliff-top view, collections of people, Dinosaur Jr, drawing distant figures, fountain pen sketching, noodlers inks, people on a beach, people watching, railings, sketching on the beach, Tenby
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28 bench-sitters
Another collection of strangers, mostly tourists, sat on benches in the square next to Bath Abbey. They’re chatting, reading, texting, pondering, relaxing, waiting, eating ice-cream, and just watching, like me. The square’s a great place for sketching people, they usually stay … Continue reading
Posted in Bath, coloured paper, from life, inks, kit, Lexington grey, line drawing, people, sketching, street scene, urban, waiting, waterbrush
Tagged Bad Blue Heron, Bath Abbey, Brown 41, coloured paper, fountain pen, Gil Scott-Heron, Noodlers inks for sketching, people in the city, people watching, seated people, sketching in ink, sketching people, urban sketching, water-brush filled with ink
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Mostly drawing 