It’s cold and dark outside, but there are always toys to draw…. Here’s Henry (a mild mannered janitor), some Airfix 1:72 scale knights, a Playmobil vulture, a shire-horse, a grass-hopper, and The Thing from the Fantastic Four.
Pencil, Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, Noodlers Brown 41 in fountain pen, water-colour, A6 – 10-30 minutes each
…than the sword. A quick post following the Paris attack where people were killed for publishing offensive cartoons, for drawing pictures that other people didn’t like. This was a direct attack on freedom of expression, and the right to challenge and mock authority.
“Though the self-righteous have killed satirists they will never annihilate satire itself. Just the opposite. From now on Charlie Hebdo will be the rallying point for all those who cherish life and laughter over the death cult of sanctimonious gloom”- Simon Schama.
“You don’t need blood to deal with despots – whatever their politics, whatever their religion: just laugh these murderous clowns back into the dustbin of history”- Martin Rowson.
The usual three inks in fountain pen and water-brush, and a touch of white ink for the nib, A5 – 30 mins
The large numbers of tourists visiting Bath means that it is blessed with many good street entertainers, excellent models for a quick sketch, and mostly fine performers. So here’s another collection of buskers, this time including one I saw in Japan. From the top there’s Kwabana Lindsay, a violin playing slack-rope artist who’s been performing in Bath, and around the world, for 28 years! Then Khoomiiman, a Japanese player of Mongolian music who I saw in a park in Kyoto; he was playing the horse-headed morin khuur to accompany his khoomi throat singing. Followed by several regular Bath buskers all seen on one Saturday afternoon before Christmas; Benji Ross playing the sax, Joel Grainger who plays looped violin, and Ben Powell who I’ve sketched several times before. Finally Ben, again.
The usual inks in fountain pen and water-brush, white roller-ball, watercolour, A6 – about 20 minutes each?
(Ten hyperlinks, no, eleven! A new record…)
The most popular posts and pages on this blog are generally concerned with kit and resources, as are most of the questions that I’m asked through comments and emails. This is great as I set up the blog after realising how vital the internet was in getting me sketching, helping me find out how other sketchers were working and the equipment they used. So I’ve added a new page to the blog, describing my current favourite sketch kit, the one I carry every day. I’ll update it monthly-ish as I change inks, find new pens, take up urban-knitting etc (The more detailed background information on how I chose from the huge range of paints, papers, pens etc is still on the blog under ‘sketching kit’.)
Welcome to 2015! This blog started two years ago and now gets about 50 visitors a day, so many thanks for your ongoing interest in my hobby. After sketching every day for almost four years I’ve settled to a particular set of resources, mostly fountain pens and dilute ink in water-brushes, and recurring themes are becoming clearer (my left hand, toys, the unsuspecting general public about the city, skulls, my left hand again). But change is good so this year you can brace yourselves for some self-portraits (shudder…), more use of different brushes, and I’ll try to do some more generally urban sketches, not just people sat on benches but also their surroundings. I aim to carry on posting about twice a week (always including a musical hyper-link) and suggestions for posts/themes are welcome. So in the spirit of new beginnings here is my right hand in the first sketch of the year.
Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, Noodlers Brown 41 and Bad Blue Heron in water-brush, A6 – 10 minutes
Tombs, memorials and statues are another great source of patient models for sketching, so here are seven monochrome examples spanning three thousand years to finish 2014. ‘Memento Mori’ or ‘Memento Vivere’ depending on your mood in the run up to the New Year… First there’s a Victorian Duke’s tomb in Chester Cathedral, complete with a loyal hound resting at his feet (in the medieval style).
Then a Tudor mathematician’s memorial (inventor of the ‘equals’ sign!) and an unusually cadaverous fifteenth century tomb, both in St Mary’s Tenby.
Followed by a Bronze Age female skull in Tenby museum, and a statue of Prince Albert with a seagull perching on his head, also in Tenby.
And finally a pair of military memorials from Bath Abbey; a Civil War tomb, the faces vandalised over the years, and a bas-relief of an eighteenth century Brigadier General.
Pencil, white Gelly Roll pen, Lexington grey and Brown 41 ink, white water-colour, gouache, A6 – range of times
…eleven of them this time, in a range of media. It’s a very reliable model, always there when I’m stuck for something to draw at the end of a long (Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young and Jones!) day, increasingly familiar, but with a fairly limited range of poses. And not at all sinister.
Pencil, fountain pen, the 3 usual inks, watercolour, mostly A6 – around 10 minutes per hand
TV is always a good source of faces to sketch, press pause and they’ll happily pose for as long as you need; I like the way the drawings tend towards caricature. There’s sometimes a bit of lens/screen distortion on archive clips, and I think the trick is to work fairly fast. It doesn’t have the satisfaction of translating the 3D world into 2D, but it’s great for spotting the key lines and tones on a face, and rendering them accurately. So here’s a leonine BBC history presenter enthusing about castles, an all-round entertainer smoking and singing, a top international chef with a fine forehead, and an extravagantly coiffured late 1960’s singer/songwriter. Happy Christmas TV viewing!
Noodlers Brown 41 in fountain pen, Lexington grey in water-brush, watercolour, A6 – all fairly fast
A final batch of monochromes from Tenby’s beaches. First the tractor that pulls a mobile jetty up and down the beach in time with the tides (here’s a similar beach-tractor in Aberporth), with sight-seers returning from a boat trip to Caldey Island. Then a fast brush-pen sketch of the North Harbour and beach seen from the castle hill on a stormy evening in fading light. And finally some strangely eroded stones I beach-combed. The rocks have been nibbled away and thoroughly tunnelled by piddocks, leaving them oddly light, like petrified sponges. I added a yellow background to the picture, but think the original’s better…
Noodlers Lexington grey and Brown 41 in fountain pen, Lexington grey in water-brush, white gouache, A5 – Tractor/30mins, harbour/10mins, rocks/40mins
Another couple of coastal sketches from Tenby. First a collection of people on the beach (both in full technicolor and the original on location line-drawing), followed by the same beach seen from a cliff-top bench, with nautical railings obscuring the view. Beaches are great for quick sketches of people, with all ages doing all sorts of things, both moving and static. There’s usually a good viewing position above the scene, and the neutral background makes the shapes easier to read. Below are some similar pictures from previous posts…
Noodlers Lexington grey and Brown 41 in fountain pen and water-brush, watercolour, A5 – 30-40 mins
Mostly drawing 