Category Archives: technique

Camden Road

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Ed Mostly

Chimney pots and windows at the back of Camden Road in Bath, sketched from the road above, while leaning on a high wall (in the foreground bottom left). It’s another view of Bath where the chaotic backs of the buildings are more interesting than the … Continue reading →

Posted in Bath, buildings, cars, from life, grisaille, Lexington grey, line drawing, street scene, technique, urban | Tagged acetate grid, Bath, Camden Road, chimney pots, composition of sketch, Fatboy Slim, fountain pen sketch, grisaille, rear windows, rooftop sketch, street scene, urban sketching, using a grid when sketching | 10 Comments

Waiting in town

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Ed Mostly

A bus queue lined up alongside Bath Abbey, and more tourists sat on benches (previously, and here). Drawing directly with ink means ‘mistakes’ are visible, recording the process of feeling out where the lines need to go. Usually I just restate the line, … Continue reading →

Posted in Bath, body, buildings, figures, from life, inks, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, people, street scene, technique, urban, waiting | Tagged Bath Abbey, Bath tourists, bus queue, couple on bench, Fail better, fountain pen drawings, mistakes in drawings, people on benches, restating lines, sketches of people in town, The Byrds, urban sketching | 2 Comments

Pan, pancake, lemons and sand-paper

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Ed Mostly

A week late, but here’s a kitchen scene from Shrove Tuesday. The fresh pancakes were too delicious to sketch mid-cooking, so I saved one after we’d eaten our fill and drew it once the pan had cooled. It was the scorched patterns on … Continue reading →

Posted in coloured ink, food, from life, home, inks, kitchen, Lexington grey, seasonal, technique | Tagged Amii Stewart, drawing of frying pan, lemons on a plate, noodlers inks, pan-cake in pan, pancakes, Shrove Tuesday sketch, sketch of kitchen scene, sketch of pancake, sketching food, using sand-paper when sketching | Leave a comment

Cars, at rest

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Ed Mostly

Parked cars on the road approaching Lansdown Crescent (where the sheep were). Below is the picture without the water-colour glaze, then without the Lexington grey ink washes, revealing the ink drawing that I did on site. The pencil grid helped with the basic placing … Continue reading →

Posted in Bath, buildings, cars, from life, grisaille, Lexington grey, line drawing, street scene, technique, urban, vehicles | Tagged Bath street sketch, cars on street, drawing cars, fountain pen sketch, Lansdown Crescent, sketch of parked cars, sketching technique, step by step sketch, Streetview sketch, The Who, urban sketching, using a grid for drawing | 2 Comments

New year, new page

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Ed Mostly

The most popular posts and pages on this blog are generally concerned with kit and resources, as are most of the questions that I’m asked through comments and emails. This is great as I set up the blog after realising … Continue reading →

Posted in brush pen, coloured ink, coloured paper, inks, kit, technique, urban, waterbrush | Tagged inks for sketching, mini water-colour palette, pens to use for sketching, portable sketch kit, sketching kit, The Hollies, urban sketching kit, water-brush sketching | Leave a comment

toys R me

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Ed Mostly

Here are four Britain’s cowboy figures, three views of a horse, and various robots enjoying some ‘circle time’. Toy figures are great sketching subjects; they’ve already been simplified as part of their miniaturisation, helping you see the key shapes and structures, … Continue reading →

Posted in animals, collections, coloured paper, line drawing, monochrome, objects, technique, toys | Tagged Bad Blue Heron, Britains cowboys, brown ink sketch, drawing horses, drawing toys, fountain pen sketches, Noodlers Brown 41, sketches of robots, sketching model horse, The Flaming Lips, waterproof ink for sketching | 6 Comments

An urban stroll

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Ed Mostly

I’ve been reading Freehand Drawing and Discovery by James Richards. Richards is an architect so his drawings look like planning proposals, but it’s got a lot of good tips on creating simple but effective urban landscapes. It also mentions ‘serial visions’, a … Continue reading →

Posted in buildings, from life, inks, journeys, line drawing, sequential, street scene, technique, travel, urban | Tagged city walls, Freehand Drawing and Discovery, Gordon Cullen, pedestrians, sequential sketches, serial vision, sketching an urban walk, street scenes, Tenby streets, Vision On gallery, walking through a town | 7 Comments

One bad apple

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Ed Mostly

Another go at mostly painting, just using pencil lines for the overall shape and some pens for the lettering on the sticker. I usually add water-colour at the end of a sketch, after establishing line and shade with ink. Here it … Continue reading →

Posted in botany, food, from life, fruit, objects, pencil, sketching, technique, watercolour sketch, white pen | Tagged braeburn apple, Broken Bells, observational panting of apple, painting fruit, rotting apple, sketch of an apple, sketching fruit, watercolour sketch | Leave a comment

From a moving vehicle

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Ed Mostly

A collection of fast drive-by sketches; trees seen from a train, and vehicles from a car. The trees were glimpsed for a few seconds as we shot past, so a brush-pen was ideal for quickly capturing their individual shapes and key lines, with … Continue reading →

Posted in collections, coloured paper, from life, inks, journeys, monochrome, sketching, technique, trains, travel, urban, vehicles | Tagged drive-by sketches, individual trees, Lexington grey ink, sketching from a vehicle, sketching on coloured paper, sketching on the move, sketching trees, sketching vehicles, The Temptations, tree shapes | 2 Comments

Feather and tea

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Ed Mostly

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 →