Mostly drawing

Ink brushes

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Ed Mostly

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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 | 1 Comment

Cafe sketching

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Ed Mostly

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

Posted in Bath, cafe, people, sketching, urban | Tagged Bath, cafe, city, people, sketching, urban | 2 Comments

Venetian cadavers

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Ed Mostly

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 | Leave a comment

Naval gazing

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Ed Mostly

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 | Leave a comment

Bus stop view

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Ed Mostly

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 | Leave a comment

Not Casanova

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Ed Mostly

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

Posted in Canova, death, Frari, monochrome, monument, pyramid, sculpture, Venice | Tagged Canova, death, Frari, monochrome, pyramid, sculpture, Venice | 1 Comment

In flight

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Ed Mostly

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 | 2 Comments

Paint-balling

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Ed Mostly

My boots drying out after a muddy day paint-balling with Si, Benjy, Leo and others. Below the boots is a tiny sketch of a Dad and his son. It was the only one I managed on the day, during a brief rest between being shot and the next game. My legs were still aching 3 days later…

Pigma 1mm pen, watercolour, A6

Posted in boots, mud, objects, paint-ball | Tagged boots, mud, objects, paint-ball | 2 Comments

Vikings

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Ed Mostly

More from the Stockholm National History Museum.

Fountain pen with carbon ink, watercolour, A5

Posted in exhibitions, museum, objects, Stockholm, Vikings | Tagged exhibitions, museum, objects, Stockholm, Vikings | 1 Comment

Night lights

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Ed Mostly

A pair of night lights on the base of a grill pan, in a tent on a cold and windy night, while camping at the end of last Summer. Had to use a head-torch to do this one.

Pigma 1mm pen , watercolour, A6