Mostly drawing

Camden Road

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Ed Mostly

Chimney pots and windows at the back of Camden Road in Bath, sketched from the road above, while leaning on a high wall (in the foreground bottom left). It’s another view of Bath where the chaotic backs of the buildings are more interesting than the neater fronts. As in a previous post I’ve included the original fountain pen drawing (which I had to stop when rain started) with the initial pencil grid guidelines established using an acetate grid. Then the intermediate grisaille version where I added a Lexington grey ink wash for the main shading. The acetate grid was useful in getting the complicated perspective and proportions right, establishing a sound skeleton for the rest of the sketch.

Pencil, Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, water-colour, A5 – 1 hour

And here’s a lovely loose water-colour sketch by Rowena, who emailed me about ways to get composition right in a landscape sketch. I suggested using some kind of acetate grid, she made one out of the top of Christmas cracker box, and this is her excellent first attempt at an outdoor scene! The eye is drawn down the path, but also out into the sunlit grass.

Posted in Bath, buildings, cars, from life, grisaille, Lexington grey, line drawing, street scene, technique, urban | Tagged acetate grid, Bath, Camden Road, chimney pots, composition of sketch, Fatboy Slim, fountain pen sketch, grisaille, rear windows, rooftop sketch, street scene, urban sketching, using a grid when sketching | 10 Comments

Waiting in town

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Ed Mostly

A bus queue lined up alongside Bath Abbey, and more tourists sat on benches (previously, and here). Drawing directly with ink means ‘mistakes’ are visible, recording the process of feeling out where the lines need to go. Usually I just restate the line, adding a more accurate or expressive one, but this doesn’t work on faces, and sometimes it’s better to start again. Which is why there’s a ghost sat to the left of the first bench. I had another go, and failed better.

Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, watercolour, A5 – various times

Posted in Bath, body, buildings, figures, from life, inks, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, people, street scene, technique, urban, waiting | Tagged Bath Abbey, Bath tourists, bus queue, couple on bench, Fail better, fountain pen drawings, mistakes in drawings, people on benches, restating lines, sketches of people in town, The Byrds, urban sketching | 2 Comments

Pan, pancake, lemons and sand-paper

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Ed Mostly

A week late, but here’s a kitchen scene from Shrove Tuesday. The fresh pancakes were too delicious to sketch mid-cooking, so I saved one after we’d eaten our fill and drew it once the pan had cooled. It was the scorched patterns on the pancake surface that had caught my eye, but the brown lines I drew to describe them were too strong; very fine sand-paper helped knock them back but it still looks over-cooked! A small piece of wet/dry paper is handy tucked in the back of a sketchbook…

Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, Brown 41 in fountain pen, watercolour, A5 – 30 minutes

Posted in coloured ink, food, from life, home, inks, kitchen, Lexington grey, seasonal, technique | Tagged Amii Stewart, drawing of frying pan, lemons on a plate, noodlers inks, pan-cake in pan, pancakes, Shrove Tuesday sketch, sketch of kitchen scene, sketch of pancake, sketching food, using sand-paper when sketching | Leave a comment

Busted

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Ed Mostly

A fine pair of portrait busts from the upper floor of Bath’s Victoria Gallery (you can see both of them in the linked photo). First there’s Sir Cloudesley Shovell (honestly), a famous C17th admiral and guitarist. Then George 3rd, king of Britain for 59 years, sculpted by Turnerelli. Both were drawn in situ, with fountain pen for the lines, and dilute ink in water-brush for the shading; I added the blue water-colour to George to help the white marble stand out.

Noodlers Brown 41 and Platinum Blue Pigment inks in fountain pen and water-brush, Lexington grey in water-brush, water-colour, A5 – 20 minutes each

Posted in Bath, coloured ink, coloured paper, exhibitions, faces, figures, inks, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, museum, objects, sculpture | Tagged Bath gallery, drawing sculpture, fountain pen sketching, George Harrison, King George 3rd, noodlers inks, Sir Cloudesley Shovell, sketching in galleries, sketching portrait busts, sketching technique, urban sketching, Victoria Art Gallery | Leave a comment

Cars, at rest

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Ed Mostly

Parked cars on the road approaching Lansdown Crescent (where the sheep were). Below is the picture without the water-colour glaze, then without the Lexington grey ink washes, revealing the ink drawing that I did on site. The pencil grid helped with the basic placing of the cars on the page and is useful with complicated views. I’ve got a piece of acetate cut to the same size as the page and marked with the same grid; by holding it in front of the scene I can avoid major errors of scale and proportion. Which doesn’t explain how the lamp-post ended up as a column…

Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, clear wax crayon (as resist for the white lines), water-colour, A5 – 40 minutes

Posted in Bath, buildings, cars, from life, grisaille, Lexington grey, line drawing, street scene, technique, urban, vehicles | Tagged Bath street sketch, cars on street, drawing cars, fountain pen sketch, Lansdown Crescent, sketch of parked cars, sketching technique, step by step sketch, Streetview sketch, The Who, urban sketching, using a grid for drawing | 2 Comments

Skullduggery

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Ed Mostly

Some more of a favourite subject. This time the skulls are from a sheep (I think), and a fox (possibly). Whatever animals they used to be they offer beautiful mini-landscapes to sketch, with lots of hills, cliffs, valleys and caves. Their natural curves, single plane of symmetry and complex shadows combine to make a lovely tabletop challenge.

Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, dilute Brown 41 in water-brush, water-colour, A5 – 30 minutes

Noodlers Brown 41 in fountain pen and water-brush, dilute Lexington grey and Platinum Blue Pigment ink in water-brush, watercolour, A5 – 30 minutes

White Gelly roll pen, dilute Lexington grey in water-brush, water-colour, A7 – 10 minutes

Posted in animals, coloured ink, coloured paper, death, from life, Lexington grey, monochrome, sketching, skulls, white pen | Tagged animal skulls, drawing skulls, fountain pen sketch, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, noodlers inks, sketch challenge, sketch of sheep skull, sketching skulls | Leave a comment

Bootylicious

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Ed Mostly

My trusty boots drawn last month after the first (very light) snowfall of the year. Below is an earlier sketch of them, showing the change in my approach over the last two years; moving from black felt-tip lines and watercolour, to fountain pen and dilute ink washes. The new way’s faster, but here I think I prefer the older slower bolder one! Maybe it’s just the more dramatic composition and higher contrast? Back to the drawing board…

Noodlers Brown 41 in fountain pen, dilute Noodlers Brown 41, Bad Blue Heron and Platinum Blue Pigment ink in water brushes, A5 – 20 mins1mm Pigma black pen, water-colour, A6 – 30 mins

Posted in boots, coloured ink, coloured paper, comparisons, from life, inks, kit, sketching, watercolour sketch | Tagged Brasher Supalite boots, comparing sketch techniques, drawing boots, fountain pen sketches, Nirvana and Destiny's Child, sketch of boots, sketching with inks, walking boots | 4 Comments

Monochrome flames

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Ed Mostly

A couple of mid-winter sketches, trying to capture the dancing shapes of a log fire. I drew ‘blind’, watching the flames to catch their individual fluid shapes, feeling out the lines with a pencil, and occasionally looking down at the page to get their location about right. They reminded me most of very fine cloth being blown in a breeze, barely there. I added dilute ink and very dilute white gouache later. We’ve always enjoyed staring into fires, entranced by the evanescent but unchanging patterns, like watching waves on a seashore, clouds in the sky, but cosier.

Pencil, Lexington grey in water-brush, white gouache, 20 minutes each – A5

Posted in blind drawing, coloured paper, fire, from life, inks, Lexington grey, line drawing, monochrome, night, pencil, sketching, watching | Tagged blind drawing, David Bowie, drawing flames, monochrome flames, natural forms, sketch of a log fire, sketching fire, sketching the evanescent | 2 Comments

Roll, with spam

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Ed Mostly

Another minimal sketch of a kitchen roll, last thing at night.

roll1 White Gelly Roll pen, Lexington grey water-brush, gouache, A7 – 10 minutes

And here’s the most charmingly odd message from the 240,000+ spam comments that the blog’s received so far: “Can I just say what a reduction to seek out someone who really knows what they’re talking about on the internet. You positively know learn how to deliver a difficulty to gentle and make it important. More individuals need to learn this and perceive this facet of the story. I cant imagine you’re not more popular since you undoubtedly have the gift.” I’m not sure what it means, but I like the sound of ‘delivering a difficulty to gentle’. And it makes a change from endless offers of Louis Vuitton bags and Christian Louboutin crepe satin pumps (?)…

Posted in coloured paper, domestic, from life, kitchen, Lexington grey, monochrome, objects, white pen | Tagged drawing of kitchen roll, kitchen roll, minimal sketch, odd spam comment, sketching in the kitchen, The Trammps, white gelly roll | Leave a comment

Open wide…

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Ed Mostly

I’ve tried ‘extreme sketching’ a couple of times before, drawing while walking along (see bottom of post), during a paintball session, in the rain, and while on a merry-go-round. I enjoyed the challenge and the resulting shaky lines, so last week I had a go at sketching the view from a dentist’s chair during a routine check-up… I managed to do the pencil line drawing while they were delving into my mouth, holding the sketchbook out beyond their hands and instruments. I added some shade and white when I got home. The dentists were slightly bemused by my request, but interested in the result, seeing a patient’s-eye view of their masked faces peering down at them! Further below is the object of the dentist’s fascination, drawn while grimacing into a mirror. Any suggestions for a new challenge?

Pencil, Lexington grey in water-brush, white gouache, A5 – 10 minutes, when I got home