Mostly drawing

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

Edding 30 marker pen, Lexington grey in water brush, water-colour, A4 and A5 – about 5 mins per gun

Posted in collections, museum, objects, sculpture, urban, urban sketching | Tagged Edding 30, marker pen sketching, Max Richter, Pitt Rivers Museum, Raven transformation mask, sketch of Haida mask, sketches of guns, sketching in museums, sketching in Oxford, Sywell Aerodrome Museum, urban sketching | 7 Comments

End of the line?

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Ed Mostly

I love a good memento mori, and this is the most striking one I’ve sketched so far. It’s a decommissioned crematorium oven (!) in the museum at Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol, found while on a sketchcrawl there with the Bristol/South West Urban Sketchers group last weekend. I also sketched a couple of graveyard statues (below), but the oven was the grimly fascinating highlight. It’s large, rusty, very old, and has obviously seen a lot of use; I started to see it as a gateway to the void, or a final destination, and some other visitors saw it as a face with an open mouth… I’d like to sketch it again, taking more time to do justice to the pipework and rusty textures; maybe I could enter it into James Gurney’s current painting challenge?

Lexington grey in fountain pen and ink brush, watercolour, A5 – 15 mins each for the statues, 30 mins on site for the oven’s line-work and main shading, with another 30 mins at home for the extra shading and colour

Posted in Bristol, brush pen, cemetery, death, figures, Lexington grey, monochrome, museum, urban sketching | Tagged Arnos vale cemetery, Belle and Sebastian, Bristol South West Urban Sketchers, crematorium oven, fountain pen sketching, graveyard sketching, memento mori, pareidolia, sketches of graveyard statues, urban sketching | 10 Comments

Analogue selfies

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Ed Mostly

Um, here goes… thirty self-portraits done over the last few years, usually late evening when I can’t find anything else to sketch to keep up the daily habit… I’m really quite a cheery soul, but the combination of staring into a mirror, and doing these late at night makes me look both dour and wrecked! But self-portraits are a good discipline, and you’re sketching the one life model who shouldn’t be too offended by the results. In some of these I can see traces of family members, in others a slight inaccuracy of line angle or distance has completely altered the likeness. My weight apparently waxes and wanes between sketches, my age seems to wander from twenty to eighty, and my nose grows and shrinks. But the glasses, eye-bags and lack of hair are always the same…

tree1 easter334 camden07

Posted in body, clothing, comparisons, faces, figures, self-portrait, sketching, watercolour sketch | Tagged comparing self-portraits, Rolling Stones, self-portraits, self-portraits over time, sketching self-portraits | 15 Comments

Harbour life #2

Posted on September 26, 2015 by Ed Mostly

More sketches from Tenby harbour. First the view from the quayside looking down and across beached boats at low tide, then a similar view from last year for comparison (stronger lines, lower angle, more pigeons…). Then a mix; a guided tour, two teenagers texting while stood in the water, people paddling, and one of the boats from the first picture afloat when the tide’s in. And finally some attempts at drawing the befuddling reflections of boats, briefly interrupted by an air/sea rescue helicopter and boat that suddenly appeared!

Lexington grey in water-brush and fountain pen, water-colour, A5 – an hour for the first one, and various times for the others

Posted in beach, boats, collections, drawing buildings, holiday, Lexington grey, line drawing, nautical, sea, Tenby, urban, urban sketching | Tagged air sea rescue helicopter, drawing reflections in water, Fontella Bass, ink brush sketches of water, sketches of boats, sketching harbour scenes, sketching water, Tenby harbour, tenby sketches | 5 Comments

Harbour life #1

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Ed Mostly

Four sketches of low tide at Tenby Harbour Beach this Summer. First some boats moored to the harbour wall (white Gelly Roll pen invaluable for the ropes), then small dinghies being taken out for a day’s sailing. The third one is from Castle Hill at dusk, light was fading fast and I could barely see the page by the end; and below it the same view at dusk last year. Finally a collection of all the boat names I could see when wandering around the beached craft, full of terrible puns, tribal allegiances, nautical dreams and yearnings for freedom; spot the name of the only working boat!

Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, water-colour, white Gelly Roll pen, A5 – various times