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Birds flying, pigs not
Swifts and seagulls flying over our house at dusk. I wanted to work out the seagulls’ odd wing angles (forward and up, and back and down?) as they’re ubiquitous in Bath at the moment, and very hard to...
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Take off, in-flight, landing
Scenes from a flight to Stockholm… A sketchy impression of the rolling patchwork landscape around Bristol airport as the plane took off, random images from a flight safety card (including a wildly...
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Worshippers, ancient and modern
Lexington grey fountain pen and water-brush, white Gelly Roll pen, white gouache, on coloured paper, A5 – 10 minutes line drawing at the museum, and 30 minutes adding the light and shade at home A...
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38 boats
While in Stockholm we caught a ferry to Grinda, one of 30,000 (!) islands in the surrounding archipelago. We swam in the warm Baltic and I tried to sketch the many pleasure craft that passed. As most...
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Swedish birds
A collection of birds seen in Stockholm. First there are two sketches from the Biologiska Museet, a beautiful wooden Victorian museum full of dioramas populated by stuffed animals who’ll hold a pose...
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Feather and tea
A couple of sketches done using found/improvised resources during a trip to Grinda, the Stockholm island where I drew the 38 boats. The first was drawn using a dip-nib cut into the tip of a swan’s...
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2 hands, 2 keys, 2 watches, and some scribbles
My 201st post is more sketches of things found on the table before going to bed. I’ve done a sketch every day for the last 3 years, and it’s these late night ones that are often the hardest to start,...
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From a moving vehicle
A collection of fast drive-by sketches; trees seen from a train, and vehicles from a car. The trees were glimpsed for a few seconds as we shot past, so a brush-pen was ideal for quickly capturing their...
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Glasses and bottles
Six attempts to sketch translucency using a range of line thicknesses; from ‘barely there’ (the pencil on the green San Pelegrino), to ‘bold’ (1mm Pigma pen on the chair with pint glass). They’re all...
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toys R me
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...
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Tokyo commuters
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,...
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26 more Japanese commuters
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...
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Remembrance
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...
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Skulls
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...
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Sketching cars #1
I kept noticing interesting cars during the Summer, and tried sketching a couple of them. Here’s Eelke’s well-loved and well-travelled Citroen DS (it’s a ‘1974 DS 23 Pallas injection electronique...
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Ow, my head hurts
Two bisected heads; first a pickled crocodile at the Grant Museum in London (tiny and old but very lovely), and then an anatomical model human at the Tokyo Museum of Emerging Science (large and modern,...
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Sketching cars #2
A second collection of car sketches. First a very cute Corvette I saw near our home; lots of beautiful details in this car, all the way down to the sting in the tail of the ‘G’ in the logo. Next...
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On the beach #1
Two from Tenby, where I spent some blissfully vacant days sketching in the Summer. First a range of boats beached in the North Harbour at low tide, with an inquisitive pigeon exploring the seaweed....
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On the beach #3
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...
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Him off the Teevee
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...
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