Mostly drawing

Return to Arnos Vale…

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Ed Mostly

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?

Posted in Bristol, cemetery, death, Lexington grey, line drawing, museum, objects, urban, urban sketching | Tagged Arnos vale cemetery, fountain pen sketching, graveyard sketching, James Gurney, Lee Perry, Lexington grey, sketch of crematorium oven, urban sketching | 6 Comments

Seasoning

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Ed Mostly

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

Posted in Bath, botany, ink brush, seasonal, street scene, urban, urban sketching | Tagged autumn sketch, Kuretake #40 brush pen, sketch of autumnal tree, sketch of fallen leaves, sketch of tree structure, The Leaves, urban garden sketch, urban sketching | 5 Comments

Twilight

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Ed Mostly

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

Posted in Bath, comparisons, landscape, Lexington grey, technique, urban, urban sketching, watercolour sketch | Tagged Bath sketching, sketches of views from Bath, sketching at dusk, Stantonbury Hill, The Dave Clark Five, urban sketching technique | 1 Comment

More selfies

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Ed Mostly

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…

srh12 srh08 abbey3

Posted in brush pen, collections, faces, Lexington grey, monochrome, self-portrait | Tagged David Bowie, drawing self-portraits, ink-brush self-portraits, Kuretake #40 #8, Kuretake brush-pens, sketching selfies | 4 Comments

Homework…

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Ed Mostly

I rarely sketch from photos, but the wonderfully encyclopaedic People of the Twenty-First Century by Hans Eijkelboom is a treasure trove of reference images for the urban sketcher. It’s a beautiful catalogue of real people going about their lives, and copying the pictures has helped to sharpen up my eye for figure drawing. The photos are presented in ‘types’ of people, so here are New York men in trench coats, Russian mothers carrying toddlers, Moroccan men on bikes, and Dutch men in leather jackets. (More details about the book are on my ‘Current Inspiration’ page).

Lexington grey in ink-brush and fountain-pen, watercolour, A5 – about 2-5 mins per person

Posted in faces, figures, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, people, sequential, technique, urban sketching | Tagged 'People of the Twenty First Century', Hans Eijkelboom, ink brush sketching, Malcolm Mclaren, practising urban sketching, sketching from photos, sketching people, sketching urban figures, urban sketching | 3 Comments

Bird’s eye view

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Ed Mostly

Three sketches from the Urban Sketchers Bristol/South West group visit to Bath last weekend. We spent an hour in the Abbey tower and on the roof, enjoying wonderful views over the city centre, and after lunch sketched in the adjacent square. First there’s a busker and his audience (an unfamiliar view of this favourite sketching haunt!), then looking West over roof-tops towards the Circus from the roof parapet, and finally the busker’s audience from ground level. It was lovely to spend the day with fellow sketchers, and thanks to the Abbey for hosting (their regular tower tours are highly recommended!).

Lexington grey in Lamy Safari, Kuretake #40 ink-brush (sublime!) and water-brush, water-colour, A5 – about 30 mins each

The usual suspects…
… and the view of the busker from the tower, with the Roman Baths just to the right of centre. Thanks to Jane for the photos.

Posted in Bath, brush pen, buildings, buskers, church, drawing buildings, figures, ink brush, monochrome, people, rooftops, sketchcrawl, urban, urban sketching | Tagged Bath sketchcrawl, bird's eye view, ink brush sketching, sketch of busker and audience, sketch of rooftop view, sketches from a great height, sketching Bath Abbey, The Drifters, Urban Sketchers Bristol/South West, urban sketching | 4 Comments

Fairly fast

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Ed Mostly

I had great fun yesterday at our sketch-crawl on the roof of Bath Abbey, I’ll scan and post pictures soon. In the meantime here are some speedy urban sketches from the last few months, using a variety of materials; the lines and basic shadow patterns were done fast on site, then colour added at home. The first two are in Bath and then a roadside burger-van sketched while waiting for a lift, all three using an ink-brush. Then a pencil sketch of a pub in Scotland, and finally a quick pen drawing of one the many famous black and white buildings in Chester. Pencil’s fluid, loose and fast, pen’s precise, and a fine-tipped ink-brush has aspects of both.

Grafwood pencil, Lexington grey in water-brush, brush-pen and fountain-pen, water-colour, A5 – various times

Posted in Bath, buildings, drawing buildings, ink brush, kit, Lexington grey, technique, urban, urban sketching, vehicles | Tagged Chester buildings sketch, DJ Shadow, fast sketching technique, ink brush sketching, Kirkudbright, sketch of burger van, sketch of pub, sketching in Bath, sketching technique, Tide Inn, urban sketching | 4 Comments

Shifting focus

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Ed Mostly

A couple of attempts to simulate depth of field by using pen for the foreground and ink-brush (and lighter ink) for the background. A partial success? I think the first one’s more effective, partly because the key subject (the mug) is closer to the viewer. I’ll try it in the outdoors next…

Lexington grey in fountain pen, Kuretake #40 ink-brush, and water-brush, water-colour, A5 – 30 mins each

Posted in brush pen, domestic, ink brush, interiors, Lexington grey, objects, technique | Tagged creating depth in a sketch, depth of field in a sketch, domestic sketches, ink brush sketching, interior sketching, The Roses of Success | 6 Comments

Oxford Museums #2

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Ed Mostly

After graveyards and guns I’ll lighten the mood with some cheerier items from the Ashmolean, “the oldest public museum in Britain, and the first purpose-built public museum in the world”, which grew out Tradescant’s Ark, a C17th ‘cabinet of curiosity’. First there’s a mesmeric Minoan octopus painted on a vase three and a half thousand years ago; keep looking at the eyes and the tentacles start to move… Then a collection of Cycladic figures spanning centuries, a couple of bronze Tibetan lamas, and finally a collection of faces and figures from the Great British Drawings exhibition.

(The Urban Sketchers Bristol/South West group will be visiting Bath for a sketch-crawl next Saturday 17th October. We’re meeting at noon outside the Abbey, with a chance to sketch on the roof and in the tower! Hope to see/meet you then…)

All the usual media but lots of ink-brush, mostly A5 – various times

Posted in animals, exhibitions, faces, figures, museum, sculpture, statues, urban, urban sketching | Tagged Ashmolean museum, Minoan octopus, museum sketching, sketches of bronze statues, sketches of Cycladic figures, sketching in Bath, Small Faces, Tibetan lamas, urban sketching | 5 Comments

Oxford Museums #1

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Ed Mostly

During a Summer trip to Oxford we spent an afternoon at the best museum in the world. First there’s a Haida ‘Raven Transformation’ mask from British Columbia; the mask is designed for storytelling dances, and opens when the wearer pulls a string… surprise! Instead of arranging objects by region or time period, the museum groups them by type, so you end up with cases full of variations on a theme. My childhood fascination with World War Two led me to a cabinet full of guns, and it was odd to see so many of them, familiar from comics and films, just sat there in the case. (Below them there’s a couple of heavier guns I saw in a small airforce museum.)

Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, watercolour, A5 – 30 mins