All my sketchbooks have back pages like this, messing around with inks, pens, pencil and paints, seeing how new resources mix with each other on paper; great fun! In amongst the chaos there are occasional serendipitous combinations and miniature abstract delights …
After many sketches of individuals and couples about town here are some attempts at drawing crowds and larger groups, trying to catch the body language and brief gestures that help to connect the figures. The first three were sketched from the top of a staircase above a cafe; one in brush-pen and two in Inktense pencil, seeing which of my current two favourite sketch-tools was best for the job (it was a draw (hah!)). The fourth was done in great haste looking up one of Bath’s many steep streets, and the last one was observed across a busy road. People bring the city to life, and Summer’s a great time to sketch the actors and not just the stage-set and scenery.
Derwent Inktense pencils, Lexington grey in brush-pen and water-brush, watercolour, A5 – 15-30 mins each
A collection of cloud studies (more here). The third one is the same cloud drawn three times as sunset arrived (I ‘overcooked’ this sketch and should have stopped much sooner. They’ve ended up looking like Aegean islands…). And the last two are oddly dramatic cloud fronts seen from a train. Cloud sketching’s a good opportunity for blind/contour-drawing, feeling out the shapes and details with the pencil/pen while keeping your eyes upward; head in the clouds, hands on paper.
I blame Sherry, who suggested I try smiling in some of my selfies…
All the usual materials (Inktense pencils or brush-pen), all fairly fast, all late at night, and all A5
Five years ago I enjoyed ‘street photography’, trying to catch telling moments in Bath’s weekend busyness. After a while the hobby lost its appeal, it wasn’t quite as satisfying as it had been, and it was around then that I started drawing. Five years later I realise I’ve come full circle… I still love going into town to catch city life unfolding, and the same things seem to catch my eye, but now I’m sketching them. It’s harder to catch life on the move with pencil and brush-pen, but I find the challenge deeply rewarding and I think it’s why my urban sketching is mostly focussed on people!
Sketches from last weekend’s USkBristol/South West sketchcrawl in Bath. Fourteen of us started inside the Abbey (it was too wet to go up the tower) where I sketched a memorial bust and inscription. We then moved to the Guildhall market where I drew a bored cafe customer alongside a busty statue, and finally another customer on a stool. As is often the case with sketching the last was the quickest to do and is the one that pleases me the most. I’m not sure why I’d never sketched in the market before as it’s full of life and interest; I shall return…. And we’re going to reschedule the Tower tour for finer weather, join us!
The usual materials, especially Inktense pencils, all A5 – 30 mins, 30 mins, 10 mins
First a four panel sequential sketch, done in brush-pen while walking down The Shrubbery, a steep local path, last month. Then the same view as the last panel a couple of years ago, and finally the view looking back up The Shrubbery. Our neighbourhood was briefly in the news last week when an unexploded 500lb bomb from the ‘Bath Blitz’ was found, just to the right of these views. We were evacuated for the night and got home just in time to have an attic window view of the bomb being lifted! (See photo below)
My favourite media for urban sketching is brush-pen (Inktense pencils a close second), and my favourite brush-pen is the Kuretake #8. It’s the cheapest (direct from Japan here), has great ink-flow (the Pentel is very dry), the brush is springy (firmer than the expensive sable version) and very fine-tipped, and it lasts well. But it can be improved in three ways…
It’s a bit long for pockets, so I cut the end off the barrel and glue a piece of wooden dowel (left over from building flatpack furniture) in the end. 
It lacks a clip on the cap, so I take one off an old Pigma pen, slightly widen it with pliers, and glue that in place too.
And the ink it comes with isn’t waterproof (and isn’t grey!). So I empty the cartridge and reload it with Lexington grey.
Now it is near perfect! 
For more on brush-pens see this page on this blog, or this highly comprehensive one from JetPens.
Recent sketchbook pages of people (and horses) around Bath, drawn with either ink-brush/brush-pen or Inktense pencils; spot the difference! I’m tending to oscillate between these two media, still loving the speed and fluency of the brush for figures, but also the slightly crisper lines and softer/richer colours of the pencils, especially for faces and hands. Perhaps I’ll try a hybrid…
Yet more from Madeira… Fellow customers at our local bakery/cafe, a first floor view looking down the street we were staying in to the mountains beyond, and a much extended house on a steep street nearby (slightly Seuss-like with tower, external stairs, balconies etc). The first was drawn using a 5B Grafwood pencil, and the last two were sketched using Derwent Inktense pencils.
Mostly drawing 