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…
All the usual mark-makers and shade-fakers, about 20-30 mins each
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.
Lexington grey in Kuretake #40 brush-pen and water-brush, Namiki blue in Kuretake #8 brush-pen, water-colour, A5 – 30 mins
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!
Lexington grey in fountain-pen, Kuretake brush-pen, and water-brush, white water-colour, pencil, A5 – about 20 mins each
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).
Lexington grey and Brown 41 in fountain pen and water-brush, watercolour, A5 – various times
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)
Dilute Lexington grey in water-brush, water-colour, A5 – 30-40 mins each
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+
More brown ink brush-pen selfies. My face has gone through a catastrophic Christmas slump by the last sketch!
Kuretake #8 and #40 filled with the usual 3 inks, Lexington grey water-brush, watercolour, A5 – 20/30 mins each
Midwinter twilights in Bath; low light, muted colours, an occasionally dramatic big sky, silhouetted rooftops and chimneys, hazy views, and cold fingers while sketching… Happy New Year!
Kuretake #40 and water brush with Lexington grey, pencil, watercolour, A5 – various times
First twenty-nine drivers, sketched from the passenger seat while overtaking on the motorway. Their faces were only glimpsed in passing, so I had to quickly memorise the key lines, but they were always in full profile which helped simplify things!
Then nineteen pedestrian bargain-hunters, seen while I sat outside a cafe in Bath. With these faces I usually had the luxury of several seconds as they walked past, so one or two even look like their subject… For both collections the key lines were drawn with the inevitable brush-pen (this time the #40 with longer sable tip), with shading and colour added later. I’ve learnt that noses often just need the shadow below them, and that I need to tone down the lower lip shadows that appear on all the faces, they’ve become a habit!
Lexington grey in Kuretake #40 brush-pen and water-brush, water-colour, A5 – about 1 minute per face?
Shoes, bananas, glasses and bottles; all drawn in November when daylight was short and indoor evening sketching the only option. Now the days have started getting longer, two or three minutes every day, so more outdoor sketching is just over the horizon…
Lexington grey in Kuretake #8 brush-pen and water-brush, watercolour, A5 – 20-30 mins each
Mostly drawing 