A simpler kit; less is more, and much lighter in the pocket! Details here…
I’m an Urban Sketcher…
Gallery
Ink-brush buildings #2
Another sketch of the rear windows of the Circus (older versions below), this time using the Kuretake #40 ink-brush. Ink-brushes are wonderfully suited to drawing soft, curved and organic subjects (people, clothing, foliage, landscapes etc) so I’m seeing how they work with subjects that are more linear and ‘technical’. I’ve darkened the ink (or rather, stopped diluting it) and this has helped to make the brush-strokes more definite than in the second earlier sketch. The soft brush-tip demands more control than a pen-nib to ensure lines have a consistent width when needed, but this is more than balanced by its speed, versatility and expression.
Lexington grey in #40 ink-brush and water-brush, water-colour, A5 – 30 mins
If you want to try ink-brush/brush-pen sketching I recommend the cheaper, but still excellent, Kuretake #8 which has a nylon brush-tip. (There’s a more expensive #13, but this has exactly the same tip as the #8 (and also a #50, which again has exactly the same sable brush-tip as the cheaper #40!)). And even cheaper is a ‘detailer’ water-brush filled with ink… Whichever you choose they all have much better ink flow and brush-tips than the popular Pentel brush-pen. There, no excuses for not having a go!
Posted in Bath, brush pen, buildings, comparisons, drawing buildings, ink brush, Lexington grey, sketching, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Bath urban sketching, brush pen urban sketching, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Kings Circus Bath, Kuretake #40 #8, Kuretake ink brush, urban sketching, urban sketching technique
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Apples and shelves
The evenings are drawing in, so there’ll be more interior sketches for a few months… Here are recently harvested apples and kitchen shelves, all done with my new preferred kit (Kuretake #40 brush-pen with Lexington grey for line, dilute LG ink in fine water-brush for shadow, and watercolour). “How do ya like dem apples?“
Kuretake #40 ink-brush with Lexington grey, water-brush with dilute Lexington grey, water-colour, A5 – 20-30 mins per sketch
Rising tide
From a visit to Aberporth a couple of years ago, trying out an inflatable canoe (it’s great!). I paddled around the headland to an inaccessible cove near the missile testing range, and sketched the beached canoe as the tide came in…
Lexington grey in Lamy Safari and water-brush, A5 – 20 mins lines and basic shadows on the beach, 20 mins boosting the shadows at home, resisting the urge to add colour!
Lots of buskers
Lots of buskers, mostly in Bath, and some of their audiences (ranging from the totally disinterested to the partially engaged). There’s a few more sketches of barefoot Ben Powell, a bottle-neck slide cigar-box guitar player, and a couple who were accompanying Morris Dancers looming like giants over a very fast sketch of Saturday crowds on Milsom Street. These sketches are all brush-pen, apart from one using the trusty Lamy Safari. If only I could combine the precise clarity of pen, with the loose liveliness and speed of an ink-brush. Darker, fuller (go-go dancers!) strength Lexington grey could be the answer…
Mostly Lexington grey in brush pens, and water-colour, A5 – various times
Posted in Bath, brush pen, buskers, comparisons, figures, ink brush, Lexington grey, monochrome, people, street scene, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Bobby Fuller Four, drawing street scenes, drawings of street musicians, ink brush sketching, sketching buskers, sketching in Bath, urban sketching, urban sketching technique
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Oxford faces
I’ll follow Stuart’s advice and post something cheerier and less morbid (mostly). So here’s a range of faces seen on a day trip to Oxford, most from the wonderful Ashmolean Museum, which I’ve posted about before. They span the whole history of portraiture, from the twenty-five thousand year old ‘Venus of Brassempouy’, through the second century CE Indian sculpture of an ascetic and a Roman Fayum mummy portrait (a brief return to the death-related), to happy faces in a lovely twentieth-century Chinese print. The final face is contemporary, seen on the train home; he’d fallen asleep…
Lexington grey in Kuretake #40 brush-pen and water-brush, water-colour, A5 – about 15 mins per face?
Posted in body, brush pen, faces, grisaille, ink brush, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, Oxford, people watching, sculpture, urban, urban sketching
Tagged Ashmolean museum, Fayum mummy portrait, Max Greger, museum sketching, sketch of man asleep on train, sketching in Oxford, train sketching, urban sketching
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Return to Arnos Vale…
After our sketchcrawl I returned for another go at sketching the old crematorium oven. I tried an oblique angle this time and used the acetate grid to get the angles right before starting with the ink (see below). I entered the finished work (not really a sketch) into James Gurney’s graveyard painting challenge and was a finalist! I shall wear his ‘Department of Art patch’ with pride at future sketch crawls. (Further below are two photos from Arnos Vale museum showing the oven when it was shiny and new in the 1930’s, and a lucky soul who had the job of maintaining the ovens… shudder. Happy Halloween!)
Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, watercolour, A4 – 2 hours?
Seasoning
Another Autumnal post, this time a garden tree I pass on the way to work. My eye was caught by the way the tree was losing leaves from the top down, revealing a branching structure that closely matches the vein pattern of the leaves, and seed pods that look like early Christmas baubles! (A fine-tipped ink-brush was perfect for the gradually tapering branches).
Lexington grey in Kuretake #40 brush-pen, water-colour, A5 – one hour
Twilight
A couple of sketches looking South from Bath towards Stantonbury Hill at dusk, trying to catch the receding planes of trees in the autumnal half-light. And then five earlier attempts at the same view from the last few years, trying out water-colour, coloured acrylic inks, and gouache.
Dilute Lexington grey in water-brush, water-colour, A5 – 20 mins
More selfies
Another batch of late night selfies, including some deliberate attempts to avoid the usual self-portrait surly stare; I’m not sure that they’re any less alarming! All but one were done with my new favourite sketching tool, Kuretake brush-pens, either number 8 (plastic barrel and nylon tip), or number 40 (metal barrel and sable tip, so four times costlier). They’ve got much better ink flow than the popular Pentel brush-pen, and a very fine and springy tip for detail and expression in line width. I ordered them from Japan and they arrived in days, with no extra customs costs. I’ve reloaded their cartridges with Lexington grey of course…
Mostly drawing 