Category Archives: urban

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

Posted in bamboo dip pen, Bath, buildings, coloured ink, drawing buildings, rooftops, urban, urban sketching, white pen | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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Ship ahoy!

Museum sketches from Stockholm. First some of the haunting facial reconstructions of bodies found in the C17th Vasa shipwreck (and the skulls they worked off) at the wonderful Vasa Museum. Then looking down from an upper viewing platform on galleries of visitors looking at the ship … Continue reading

Posted in bamboo dip pen, boats, faces, figures, museum, nautical, Naval museum, people watching, skulls, Stockholm, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gothic horror

Here’s the amazing C15th statue of George and the Dragon in Stockholm’s Storkyrkan. It’s huge, gruesome (body parts are scattered on the ground beneath the dragon) and made of wood and deer antlers (the spiky bits on the dragon). That’s the … Continue reading

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Urban bamboo

Trying out the bamboo dip pen around town, people (and dog) watching in the parks and streets. It’s great for gesture drawing and foliage, something about the nib invites a playful wandering line, feeling out the shapes and shadows. From the top: … Continue reading

Posted in bamboo dip pen, Bath, buskers, coloured ink, figures, park, people watching, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Sketches of sketchers, some sketching

Sketchers at the recent wonderful Manchester Symposium, and sketches of me by other sketchers, sometimes while I sketched them; the Symposium felt like a hall of mirrors at times, a walk-in Escher! From the top there’s Lapin not sketching, Favian EE … Continue reading

Posted in comparisons, concertina sketchbooks, figures, Manchester Symposium, people, sketchcrawl, urban, urban sketching | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments