Mostly drawing

Favourite books about sketching?

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Ed Mostly

I’m giving a lecture on the history of books about sketching (not sketch-books!) at the USk Manchester Symposium in July. I’ll be looking at some early examples from the UK, and comparing them with some of the many available today. I want to consider as many as possible so I need your help. Which are your favourites, and why do you like them? Are they practical/inspirational, ancient/modern, manual/art-book, local/global? Please let me know through the comments section, and I’ll add your contributions to the lecture… Many thanks, Ed (PS This is a ‘sticky’ post, and will stay at the top of the blog for a while. Normal service and twice weekly sketching posts continue below!)

Evenin’ all

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Ed Mostly

Looking up Rivers Street in Bath on a crisp cold evening, nobody about. Here it is on a sunny day courtesy of Streetview. A quick brush-pen sketch, with colour and white highlights added at home.

fghgj2 Lexington grey in Kuretake #8 and water-brush, water-colour, A5 – 20 mins

Posted in Bath, brush pen, buildings, cars, ink brush, International Symposium, Lexington grey, night, street scene, urban, urban sketching | Tagged Belle and Sebastian, Kuretake #8, night sketching, Rivers Street Bath, sketch of evening street, sketch of street scene, sketching in Bath, sketching with a brush-pen, urban sketching | Leave a comment

Six pigeons

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Ed Mostly

Sat on my habitual weekend sketching perch, the steps by the back-door to the Roman Baths, overlooking the paved square next to Bath Abbey. The people on the benches were the original focus for the sketch, and then the pigeons landed… Fast brush-pen fun; about 20 minutes for the dark ink work, 5 for the dilute ink-wash shadows, and 5 for the colour wash.

Jan 1612 Lexington grey in Kuretake #40 and water-brush, watercolour, A5 – 30 mins

Posted in Bath, benches, brush pen, figures, ink brush, Lexington grey, people watching, street scene, urban, urban sketching | Tagged Bath Abbey, brush-pen sketching, Kuretake #40, sketch of people on benches, sketch of pigeons, sketching in Bath, Teenage Fanclub, urban sketching | 2 Comments

Yet more…

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Ed Mostly

Another seven selfies, in pen, pencil and brush-pen, with the usual self-portrait expressions (aloof, bored, angry, vacant, odd). All done fairly fast as it was late, and sleep beckoned… Both friends and family say there’s little resemblance to me in any of them, except maybe the first. I see a slight glimpse of an aspect of me in each one; if I could combine all the tiny elements of ‘likeness’ from them…

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All the usual mark-makers and shade-fakers, about 20-30 mins each

Posted in brush pen, collections, eye, faces, ink brush, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, pencil, self-portrait | Tagged brush-pen sketching, ink-brush sketches of faces, LCD Soundsystem, monochrome sketching, sketch selfies, sketching self-portraits | 6 Comments

Manchester Symposium

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Ed Mostly

I’m very excited to have been selected to present a demo (using brush-pens for sketching) and a lecture (on the long and rich history of books about sketching) at this year’s Urban Sketchers International Symposium in Manchester. Yippee! Maybe see you there in late July? Early bird registration starts noon January 30th…

Meanwhile, here’s another brush-pen sketch of the first-floor view from PicNic cafe in central Bath; same street, different day. This one was faster (30 mins) than the previous (below), and more ‘zoomed in’ on the figures. I also used darker/less dilute ink and the ‘wetter’ Kuretake #40 instead of the #8.

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Lexington grey in Kuretake #40 brush-pen and water-brush, Namiki blue in Kuretake #8 brush-pen, water-colour, A5 – 30 mins

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Posted in Bath, brush pen, cafe, figures, ink brush, International Symposium, Lexington grey, people watching, shoppers, street scene, urban, urban sketching | Tagged Bobby Womack, brush-pen sketching, Kuretake #40, Manchester Symposium, Picnic cafe Bath, sketch of busy shoppers, sketch of street scene, sketching in Bath, urban sketching | 3 Comments

Six corners

Posted on January 27, 2016 by Ed Mostly

The same busy corner of a kitchen work-top, sketched on six different evenings, in fountain-pen, brush-pen and pencil. It could probably make a very dull time-lapse; sauce, wine and oil bottles slowly moving around the pepper grinder!

ksjdhf01 ksjdhf02 ksjdhf12 ksjdhf03 fghgj3 ksjdhf04 Lexington grey in fountain-pen, Kuretake brush-pen, and water-brush, white water-colour, pencil, A5 – about 20 mins each

Posted in brush pen, coloured paper, domestic, ink brush, interiors, kitchen, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, objects | Tagged brush-pen sketching, domestic sketching, fountain pen sketches, ink brush sketching, kitchen sketches, monochrome, sketches of bottles and jars, Supergrass | 2 Comments

The quick(ish) and the dead(very)

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Ed Mostly

Two double-page spreads from yesterday’s USk Bristol/South West sketchcrawl at Bristol Museum (15 sketchers, our best turn out yet!). Here are passengers at Bath railway station, a recreation of the Dignitas flat and the reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian face (both part of the ongoing ‘Death; the human experience’ exhibition at the museum), museum cafe customers seen from an upper gallery (including John sketching), and a stuffed hippo. (At the bottom two previous sketches of bisected heads: a model in a Tokyo museum, and a crocodile at the Grant Museum in London).

BCM1 BCM2 Lexington grey and Brown 41 in fountain pen and water-brush, watercolour, A5 – various times

Posted in Bristol, brush pen, cafe, death, faces, figures, museum, people watching, urban, urban sketching | Tagged Bristol Museum, brush pen sketches, David Bowie, Dignitas, museum sketching, sketch of hippo, sketch of people in cafe, sketch of skull, urban sketching, USk Bristol/South West | Leave a comment

Mendip views

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Ed Mostly

Some rural sketching for a change… three views from an Autumnal walk along the Mendips. The first is from the top of Crook Peak, looking down onto the motorway (shining after a recent rain shower), and across the Bristol Channel to the distant Welsh hills. Then two views looking down onto Cheddar town and its reservoir, the first from the top of the Gorge. That’s Glastonbury Tor off in the distance on the right in the last sketch.

(Maybe see you at the Bristol/South West sketch-crawl this Saturday, in Bristol City Museum? Details here)

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mendipoct2 Dilute Lexington grey in water-brush, water-colour, A5 – 30-40 mins each

Posted in brush pen, clouds, coloured paper, ink brush, landscape, Mendips, rural, watercolour sketch | Tagged brush-pen sketching, Cheddar resevoir, distant view of motorway, Iron and Wine, Lisa Hannigan, Mendip sketches, rural sketching, sketches of Cheddar | 2 Comments

Twilight

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Ed Mostly

It’s either late afternoon or early evening. Lights are coming on but the sky is still reflected in the car windows, colour’s fading from the cars, buildings and people. That’s the back of the Royal Crescent silhouetted in the background, a few of its many many chimneys! Drawn with a brush-pen, fingers gradually seizing up, with colour washes added at home from memory.

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Lexington grey in Kuretake #8 brush-pen and water-brush, watercolour, A5 – 40 mins total

Posted in Bath, brush pen, drawing buildings, figures, ink brush, rooftops, street scene, twilight, Uncategorized, urban, urban sketching | Tagged Bath sketching, brush-pen sketching, ink brush sketching, Kuretake #8, Memory Tapes, sketch of street at twilight, street lamps, urban sketching | 8 Comments

A pair of pistols

Posted on January 11, 2016 by Ed Mostly

The one on the left’s a replica black-powder revolver (each of the six chambers has to be hand-loaded), and the one on the right’s a Magnum (as favoured by this chap). I’ve sketched guns a couple of times before, but always deactivated ones through the glass of a museum case. These ones were fully useable (licensed, securely stored etc) and sat on a kitchen table (not mine!), so I was able to set them up for good lighting etc., and this felt very strange; in the UK we’re fortunately unfamiliar with firearms. Like all guns they are provocative, they embody a lot of concentrated power, and carry different cultural associations for different people; liberty, oppression, violence, resistance. Strong stuff…

The brush-pen wasn’t really going to work for these so I used ‘old faithful’, a Lamy Safari, and a ruler for the two barrels. (Is this a sketch? It felt more like a technical drawing, I drew some pencil guide lines, and it took longer than an hour… When is a sketch not a sketch?)

Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, water-colour, and white gel-pen for the highlights, A5 – One hour+