19 of the thousands of people I saw yesterday in a very hot London. Sketched in cafes, train stations and the passport office where I was getting my passport renewed at extremely short notice ready for a return trip to Istanbul tomorrow…
Fountain pen and water-brush with Lexington grey ink, blue and brown Pigma pens, A6
Late afternoon, looking down Brock Street while sat under one of the huge plane trees in the centre of the King’s Circus, Bath. There’s a red sight-seeing bus heading towards towards the Royal Crescent, and a delivery van parked up on the pavement. Britain’s enjoying a heatwave at the moment so the grass is parched yellow and people are muttering about the weather.
I’m still enjoying experimenting with coloured papers and gouache. Here the brown paper gives a consistent background for the uniform Bath stone buildings, with dilute Lexington grey ink adding the shadows. The unfinished figure reclining bottom right got up and left…
1mm Pigma pen, water-brush with Lexington grey, Gelly Roll white pen, gouache, A5
A couple of sketches from the wonderful and surprisingly large Toy Museum in Sintra, Portugal. The museum houses the personal collection of João Arbués Moreira, who was there on the day we visited, keen to chat about his favourite exhibits and explain why some were so rare (especially the Nazi era toy soldiers which were understandably mostly destroyed after the war).
A box of doll’s heads ready to be mended.
Blue Pigma pen, Lexington grey ink in water-brush
Looking down the main stairwell past a model plane.
Fountain pen with carbon ink, watercolour, Lexington grey ink in water-brush, A4
Another repeated subject, with 4 versions of a familiar view where I regularly have to wait.
The cars change, a notice is tied onto the lamp-post, a badly drawn traffic cone appears, and a bird flies over. But the basic elements remain; the sloping pavement and lamp-post in the foreground, the middle distance railings and trees, and the distant woods across the valley. And it’s mostly monochrome as I’m only there for about 10 minutes..
Marker pen and fountain pen with carbon ink, Diamine and Lexington grey ink in water-brushes, white gouache, white marker pen, A6
Looking up at the ‘Castle of the Moors’ on the crest of the hill above Sintra in Portugal. The 8th century castle was restored in 1840, at the same time that the nearby Pena Palace was being built, and its dramatic position makes it a key element in the highly picturesque scenery around Sintra.
Another quick sketch focussed on the boundary between sky and horizon, something that gouache seems to excel at.
Gouache, A5
A silent visitor to our garden on a very hot afternoon, a Scarlet Tiger moth. There’s a tiny glimpse of the moth’s glorious scarlet inner wings just visible at the base of the centre line.
Its Latin name, Callimorpha Dominula, could be translated as ‘beautiful shaped little mistress’. It’s a day-flying moth and one of the few tiger moths with mouthparts, as it needs to feed as an adult. Most other tiger moths never feed, surviving on fat stored when they were larvae. None of which I knew before writing this post!
Fountain pen and water-brush with Lexington grey ink, watercolour, A6
Fountain pen with Carbon ink, water-colour, A5
Marker pen with Carbon ink, watercolour, A5
Two views of Lisbon from the apartment we stayed in, with two different approaches to line.
I loved looking across at a neighbouring roof-top and its eclectic collection of aerials, dishes, pipes, chimneys etc above the formal symmetry and order of the apartment building. And then looking down at the street below with the yellow trams clanging past.
I couldn’t have drawn the intricacies of the TV aerials with the marker, and didn’t have the patience to use the fountain pen on the details of the buildings in the street scene. ‘Horses for courses’…
3 more sketches from the wonderful and mysterious gardens of the Quinta Da Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal.
Looking up from the bottom of the 27 metre deep “Initiation Well” or “Initiatic Well”. It has a secret entrance at the top and a spiral staircase around its sides leading down to more tunnels… I love the way gouache can produce such great contrast on tinted paper.
1mm Pigma pen, Lexington grey water-brush, gouache, A5
One of the many grottoes, this one close to an exit tunnel from the base of the “Initiation Well”.
Fountain pen with Carbon ink, Lexington grey water-brush, A5
Stepping stones across ‘the waterfall lake’, and a couple of gargoyles on the palace roof.
Fountain pen with carbon ink, Lexington grey water-brush, watercolour, A5
Quick thumb-nails sketched last weekend on the road back from North Devon. Spot the trailer-load of toilets being delivered to the Glastonbury Festival site, which is about 25 miles from Bath. All that wonderful music, just down the road from here. When I’ve finished this post I’ll get back to the live coverage (Primal Scream, with their old dads performing later).
I last went to the festival in 1992 when the total attendance was 70,000 and remember it as great fun, but fairly crowded; this year there are 135,000 180,000 (!) on a larger site. Woodstock in 1969 peaked at about 400,000. The population of Bath is around 85,000…
Water-brush with Lexington grey ink, gouache, A6, coloured paper
…it’s golden brown. Breaking in a new sketch book with a familiar cuppa.
Fountain pen and water-brushes with lexington grey ink, white Gelly Roll pen, watercolour, A5
Mostly drawing 