School grade 130gsm cartridge paper. HB to 3B Rexel Cumberland pencils. I think I need a 4B with this paper, it’s a bit soft and lacking the fine key required for the deepest blacks.
A4; plaits
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Category Archives: Art
Biro, flipped drawing.
A5 sketchbook, bic biro.
A4 sketch-book, acrylic paint
Biro version
Drawn during DofE trip to Cannock Chase. See the recent acrylic painting version in another post. Started while manning a checkpoint and finished before breakfast one morning on Cannock Chase.
Bombardment
Found a new, unused sketch-book in a box recently. From now, it’s my new paintings book; the paper us much better, being thicker at 170gsm rather than 140. Even though the old book still has a dozen blank pages, I’m going to move over to this one from now.
Polly, is that you?
On an evening visit to Port de’Antrax, we took the kids for an end of holiday drinky. It was nice but I wasn’t expecting what came next.
We plodded back towards the carpark and a voice said “is he an art teacher?”. Polly from QMHS was there with her bloke and son. It was such a thrill to have such an unlikely unlikely encounter. Yes I was her art teacher from about 10 years ago. She was from a small group of cool kids that stuck in your memory.
Statues
A5 sketchbook, acrylic paint
From photos of a graveyard statues. The stone must have been beautifully carved, perhaps in the 1920s. Now it has weathered and has lichen growing on it. Some surfaces show the paths of decades of rain. Some of these have probably endured 100 winters, thousands of rainstorms and hot summer’s days. Lichem makes up most of the discolouration though there is moss in places too.
These are all on A5 cartridge paper with acrylic paints. Each has an acrylic ground which is dry before the image is started. There is no pencil makring up. Layers of paint are added as thin glases.
Low key acrylic
I need to do something to the upper figure to move it into the background. Perhaps a red wash.
Sketch In the Square.
Trafalgar Square.
Warm, 21°C, bright sun, light breeze
A few days in That London to take the lad to see possible universities. We looked round UCL with an interest in Biomedical Science. The city was relatively quiet with much reduced numbers of foreign tourists. I reckon the foreign voices heard in the square were peole who live here coming as inland tourists to london. Many wanted to take photos of the kids after they climbed up on the lion statues.
After a coffee and a walk, we ended up at the National Portrait Gallery (which was closed). Round the back is the National Gallery which had an enormous queue. But… in the square was a big cluster of easels and staff giving out drawing materials. This is “Sketch in the Square”.
It turns out they are from the gallery’s public education department. There was the choice of sitting at an easel (but they were full) or wandering off with a board/paper and medium. I seized the opportunity and took A3 paper, a clipboard and a nice thick 2B graphite stick.
With only a graphite stick (a ‘chunky’) I needed to shade as soon as possible to sharpen the tip on the chunky. There are things wrong with each drawing even though, the second one I did get to use a rubber. Nevermind, if I don’t point out the faults, then maybe nobody will notice. Don’t tell. I think my choice of media was about right, 2B is quite hard but darks can be marked with heavy pressure.
Folks did notice me drawing though. I got some fabulous comments, from a guttoral “Woooowww” to a chat with an undergraduate from Mumbai who asked for permission to take a photo. A couple of nervous teenage girls said ” I just wanted so say how much I like your drawing“… then ran away. I overheard an unseen group talking about putting a picture on their ‘story’. More kids stopped to watch than anybody else.
I loved it, I suppose all those years drawing in front of kids in class took away and self-counscious inhibition. I’d go every day if I could.
Looking shocked
More sketchbook acrylic paintings.
Spirit of Turpentine 