Category Archives: urban sketching

Post-Symposium reflections…

This page has a longer version of the article I’ve written for the USk blog, including an extra section on ‘next steps?’.  I’d love to have your feedback, comments, reactions…

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Peoples and persons

Indulging in my favourite hobby, drawing people out and about in Bath. From the top there’s a crowd of boozy boules match spectators, tourists near the Abbey, and fellow customers sat outside a cafe. I’ve found pencils wonderfully sensitive for … Continue reading

Posted in Bath, figures, line drawing, pencil, people watching, street scene, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Allotment views

The same view (backs of Bath buildings from some allotments) sketched three times on separate days. All late afternoon/early evening, all in bamboo dip-pen, all in coloured ink (including an oddly muddy grey De Atramentis blend) but all a bit different as … Continue reading

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Three corners

Three sketches of the wonderfully ornate Victorian building on the corner of Westgate and Union Street in Bath. There’s about a year between each sketch, the most recent at the top, with a shift from fountain pen to bamboo dip-pen, and … Continue reading

Posted in bamboo dip pen, Bath, buildings, coloured ink, drawing buildings, Lexington grey, monochrome, street scene, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Urban trees

Sketches of nature in the city, making a change from scurrying shoppers, buildings and resting tourists! Here’s looming birch on London’s Hampstead Heath, the shady base of five plane trees in the centre of the King’s Circus in Bath, and a neighbour’s conifer; … Continue reading

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Improving a bamboo dip pen

My current favourite mark-maker is a bamboo dip pen. I love the free-flowing lines that can wander around the page, and it’s great for ‘blind drawing’ of foliage, clouds etc. It delivers big juicy lines that can merge into forms if you … Continue reading

Posted in bamboo dip pen, blind drawing, dip pen, kit, technique, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , | 21 Comments

Six distant hills

They’re all Stantonbury Hill, which I’ve sketched many times before, seen from North Bath. The first three were painted in quick succession in opaque watercolour on a rainy afternoon, then one in bamboo dip pen, and then a couple of quick translucent watercolours. After … Continue reading

Posted in bamboo dip pen, Bath, comparisons, landscape, opaque watercolour, rooftops, urban sketching, watercolour sketch | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Barry’s book

My friend Barry is writing a book about his recent experience of learning to use a wheelchair and the wider impact this has had on his life. He’s kindly asked me to illustrate the reflections and anecdotes; some are positive, … Continue reading

Posted in Barry's book, Bath, illustration, Lexington grey, monochrome, street scene, urban, urban sketching, waiting | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Walky, talky

Here’s a video of my lecture at the Manchester Symposium. It’s about an hour long and is an attempt to trace the history of urban sketching through old and vintage sketching books, and earlier art movements. Many thanks to the … Continue reading

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Stockholm museums

More sketches from Stockholm’s wonderfully rich collection of museums, this time the Museum of Ethnography, the Mediterranean Museum, and the Nordic Museum. From the top… a cabinet of small statues, a pair of Roman busts, a Saami knife handle (and portrait … Continue reading

Posted in collections, exhibitions, masks, museum, statues, Stockholm, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment