Ostermalm in central Stockholm is full of late nineteenth century apartment blocks, some with lovely doorways. I planned to sketch lots of them when we were there this Summer but only managed three…
All Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, watercolour, A6 – 20-30 mins per doorway
A bit late for Halloween, but here are some recent skull sketches. The first is of the full-size medical model that I’ve drawn many times before. I love its tricky curves and deep hollows, and the brown and blue inks combine to make lovely soft shadows for the eye sockets. The second is six different views of a beautifully detailed tiny plastic ape skull I bought in Japan (possibly a ‘crab eating macaque’?). I think it’s meant to be used as a key-ring/phone-charm, a modern netsuke.
Noodlers Brown 41, Bad Blue Heron and Lexington grey inks in fountain pen and water-brush, A6 – 30 minutes
Brown 41 ink in fountain pen and water-brush, Lexington grey in water-brush, watercolour, A6 – 30 minutes
A family waiting outside the Bath Grand Pump Rooms, next to the Roman Baths. They sat silent and still for about 20 minutes, which made drawing them much easier. I was about 30 yards from them and couldn’t see whether they were serene, or bored, or relaxed, or just very very tired after a day of sight-seeing. I think the boy was holding some sort of dog, I could just make out long ears and a lead!
Brown 41 ink in Fountain pen, Lexington grey in water-brush, watercolour, A6 – 20 minutes
It’s the 11th day of the 11th month, so here’s a bas-relief memorial tablet in Salisbury Cathedral, placed in memory of Edward Tennant, a young officer and poet killed on the Somme in 1916. It includes touching testimonies to his life and times; “when things were at their worst he would go up and down in the trenches cheering the men, when the danger was the greatest his smile was loveliest”; and “he gave his earthly life to such matter as he set great store by: the honour of his country and his home“.
Noodlers Brown 41 in fountain pen and water-brush, watercolour, A6 – 20 minutes
It was the junior officers’ job to lead the way ‘over the top’ and expose themselves to the greatest danger as an example to their men; they made easy targets in their distinctive uniforms. Some 12% of the British army’s ordinary soldiers were killed during the war, compared with 17% of its officers (BBC). I think the memorial was based on this 1915 portrait by John Singer Sargent, hence the long neck.
More quick sketches from Japan, this time a collection of commuters at Kyoto main station around 10pm. I was sketching from one of the many high balconies (see below), pleased to catch a couple of salarymen in the middle of a long series of bows, top right. Just using fountain pen and water-brush again, this time with Lexington grey ink, and a touch of white for the phone screens.
Lexington grey ink in fountain pen and water-brush, white Rotring ink, A6 – 30 mins
The soaring interior of Kyoto station at night. I drew the commuters from the next balcony down.
I spent last week on a study trip to Japan, a great opportunity generously supported by the Japan Foundation. The schedule was hectic and very full, but it helped to hone my speed-sketching skills, straight to ink using a simple fountain-pen and water-brush kit. So here’s a collection of Tokyo commuters on the subway, and a serene priest I saw elsewhere holding a bowl of tea (he wrote his name next to the sketch). More to follow when the jet-lag subsides…
Noodlers Brown 41 ink in fountain-pen and water-brush, A5 – Each person took a couple of minutes for the line drawing, and 5 minutes adding the wash later
Here are four Britain’s cowboy figures, three views of a horse, and various robots enjoying some ‘circle time’. Toy figures are great sketching subjects; they’ve already been simplified as part of their miniaturisation, helping you see the key shapes and structures, with less distracting detail. You can also get the angle and composition exactly how you want, they don’t move, and the better made ones are useful practise for drawing figures in the ‘real world’ (where I often see cowboys, horses, and robots).
Noodlers Lexington grey, Brown 41 and Bad Blue Heron in fountain pen and water-brush, white Rotring ink, watercolour, A6 – various times
Another collection of strangers, mostly tourists, sat on benches in the square next to Bath Abbey. They’re chatting, reading, texting, pondering, relaxing, waiting, eating ice-cream, and just watching, like me. The square’s a great place for sketching people, they usually stay still for a few minutes and are far enough away to make them simple to draw, few details to distract. 
After 2 years of devotion to Lexington Grey I’m now enjoying two new Noodlers inks, Brown 41 and Bad Blue Heron. All three are waterproof and combine well; loaded in fountain pens, and diluted in water-brushes they make a handy sketch kit offering line, shade and colour. Pure Pens have now restocked and have bottles and bottles of fine Noodlers inks for you to try (I think they’re the only UK/European stockists?).
Noodlers water-proof inks in fountain pen and water-brush, a dash of white gouache in the top picture, A6 – about 2 minutes per figure
A flock of sheep on the steep field in front of Lansdown Crescent on the Northern slopes of Bath. An odd but lovely urban sight, a very faint echo of the times when drover’s roads criss-crossed the UK, bringing flocks of sheep into many city-centre markets. (More history below the pictures…) The sheep were good to draw, slow-moving with chunky curves, spindly legs, and their head shape reminded me of camels.
White Rotring pen, Lexington grey in fountain pen and water-brush, white gouache, A5 – 45 minutes
White Rotring pen, Noodlers brown ink in fountain pen, Lexington grey water-brush, watercolour, A6 – 30 minutes
‘Medieval Bath became a city of trade and prospered from the woollen industry. It was ideally situated as drovers could bring their sheep in from the edge of the Cotswold Hills, the River Avon powered the mills and proximity to the port of Bristol helped the traders sell and transport their goods. Bath became famous for its tightly woven broadcloth. There were 50 broad looms in one area of Broad Street alone. The importance of the wool trade is illustrated by the occupations of MPs for Bath – three weavers, a cloth maker and a cloth merchant – while in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath is “an expert in cloth making – better than the cloth-makers of Ypres and Ghent.” ‘ (From the Mayor of Bath’s website)
I’ve been reading Freehand Drawing and Discovery by James Richards. Richards is an architect so his drawings look like planning proposals, but it’s got a lot of good tips on creating simple but effective urban landscapes. It also mentions ‘serial visions’, a series of sequential drawings that share the experience of moving through a city (see below for the original source). So I had a go at a ‘serial vision‘ in Tenby; I didn’t have long and only managed 4 line drawings, adding the shade and colour later. Imagine you’re walking through a gate tower in the ancient city walls, past some shops, towards a tree, where you turn left. (Here’s the Google Streetview version. And there’s a Seattle urban sketcher’s attempt here.). I like the way a sequence of pictures adds the sense of time passing, and I’ll try another one in Bath soon.
Platinum sepia pigment ink in fountain pen, Lexington grey water-brush, watercolour, A5 – about 10 minutes per drawing
The idea of ‘serial visions’ appears in Gordon Cullen’s 1961 urban planning book ‘Townscape’. Here’s his explanation:
Mostly drawing 