A fast sketch on a cold night on the way back from The Star, an exceptionally fine pub in Bath.
Pigma 1mm pen, water-brushes filled with dilute Diamine grey and Chinese sumi ink, A6
I’m an Urban Sketcher…
Gallery
Night time
Posted in Bath, brush pen, monochrome, night, urban
Tagged Bath, brush pen, city, monochrome, pub, The Star Inn
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No knead
A crusty loaf baked using the very tolerant and adaptable no knead bread recipe, developed by Jim Lahey. This became a lesson in landscape painting, with miniature valleys, hills and peaks, all looking slightly volcanic…
I was interested to see how rich and intense I could get the colours and contrast by building up multiple glazes of ink. I ended up using a hairdryer to dry the ink between layers, so I could finish the picture before we ate the loaf for lunch!
(The white line down the centre is the wonky dental floss stitching I use to bind my sketchbooks.)
Water-brushes with dilute Windsor and Newton and Lexington grey inks, Jelly Roll white rollerball, Pilot V7 with lexington grey, hair-dryer, A4
Posted in food, from life, home, inks, sketching, waterbrush
Tagged bread, ink, Lexington grey, no-knead
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Crow’s feet
Another late evening sketch, using a mirror to sketch my left eye. I held a gleeful grin for several minutes, strongly top-lit by a daylight bulb, to capture my periorbital lines, or ‘crows feet’ in full detail; it felt like contour mapping part of a familiar landscape.
(I was going to add a link to more information on ‘periorbital lines’, but the only sites I could find were about their ‘treatment’, ‘correction’ or ‘removal’, presenting ‘the signs of ageing’ as illness, error or mistake…)
Water-brush and fountain pen with Lexington grey ink, watercolour, A6
Posted in eye, home, people, self-portrait, sketching, waterbrush
Tagged contours, crows feet, daylight bulb, eye, people, self-portrait
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Ink brushes
I’ve been filling water-brushes with dilute inks, creating another portable limited palette of colours that I can blend on the page. I’m using Windsor and Newton inks which are transparent and quickly become waterproof, enabling me to layer colours, building up tints, tone, and intensity. So far I’m using 6 colours, along with Lexington grey which I use for a sort of grisaille or underpainting.
So here are three attempts at a local view, early afternoon, sunset and twilight. The last two are the same picture, first with just Lexington grey, and the second with a watercolour wash for colour (note the slight loss of detail…).
I like the way that using these ink brushes encourages me to be more ‘painterly’ in my sketches, looking primarily for colour and shape rather than line. It also enables faster sketching!
Water-brush with Windsor and Newton and Lexington grey inks, A6
Posted in Bath, brush pen, grisaille, inks, kit, Lexington grey, Stantonbury, waterbrush
Tagged Bath, brush pen, colour and shape, grisaille, inks, Lexington grey, Stantonbury, water brush, waterbrush
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Cafe sketching
Helen from St Helens in Society Cafe, Bath. She got in touch through this blog as she was interested in urban sketching and having a look at the materials I use. She’s posted about her initial sketches, and it’ll be interesting to see how her move into drawing influences her other work. (One of the reasons I set up this blog was to help generate sketch crawls in Bath, and this is the first example of it working. Thanks Helen!)
Fountain pen with carbon ink, watercolour, A5
Venetian cadavers
More cheery sculptures from Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice (see previous post), this time on the Giovanni Pesaro monument. These two figures are slightly hidden in the shadows, looking like coy zombies emerging from the shower.
Pilot V7 pen and water-brush with Lexington grey ink, and Chinese sumi ink for the background, A4
Posted in death, Frari, monochrome, monument, sculpture, skeleton, Venice
Tagged death, Frari, monochrome, sculpture, Venice, zombie
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Naval gazing
A large eagle(?) sculpture at the Naval History Museum in Venice, a great place for sketching. Four well-lit floors filled with a vast variety of maritime objects; model ships and planes, charts, machine guns, uniforms, 3D maps old old fortresses, engines, full-size gilded barges, human torpedoes… At €1,55, the best value attraction in Venice!
I spotted another sketcher, the only one I saw during 4 days in Venice, with water-brush and notebook in hand, drawing boats. He was Pascal Koch from Liege, there as tutor to a group of students drawing elsewhere in the museum. We went through the familiar sketcher’s greeting ritual of comparing paper, pen and paint choices, exchanging sketchbooks, swapping blog addresses, and enthusing about the joys of observational drawing. Meeting fellow sketchers abroad makes the world feel smaller and bigger at the same time; more connected and with much more to explore…
Pilot V7 pen with Lexington grey ink, water-brush with dilute Lexington grey, watercolour, and a bit of white wax crayon for the highlights, A5
Posted in eagle, exhibitions, museum, Naval museum, urban, Venice
Tagged animal, eagle, museum, Naval history, objects, Venice
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Bus stop view
Looking across the Grand Canal at gondolas and hotels. The view from the Salute waterbus stop in Venice at 7am.
Marker pen with carbon ink, watercolour, A6
Posted in Grand canal, marker pen, Venice, water bus
Tagged canal, gondolas, marker pen, Venice, waterbus
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Not Casanova
One of the many extravagant and dramatic monuments in Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. This one’s for the sculptor Canova (not Casanova, another famous Venetian) and his heart’s buried here. The monument is a large plain pyramid and the entrance door is half ajar, giving a glimpse of further blackness beyond…
Pilot V7 pen and water-brush with Lexington grey ink, A4
In flight
Ryanair yellow on a flight to Venice. Returned to find that this blog had 20 times the usual number of visitors yesterday… Many thanks to Nina Johansson for posting about my blog on hers!
Marker pen with carbon ink, water-brush with dilute Lexington grey, watercolour, A4
Posted in airplane, journeys, marker pen, monochrome, Ryanair, Venice, yellow
Tagged airplane, journeys, marker pen, Venice, yellow
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Mostly drawing 