Monday, April 25, 2016

Transfer paper

This white graphite paper was a great help transferring my image onto canvas for the large painting that I'm working on at the moment.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Another page


Another sketchbook drawing I made at the Natural History Museum's ice rink features in Lynne Chapman's new book.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Sketching people


Lovely to receive a copy of Lynne Chapman's book 'Sketching People' in the post today.  
Two of my sketchbook drawings are included.  This one was drawn in Wimbledon Town Centre when the Big Screen was installed for the tennis.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Piccadilly

Had a lovely day out yesterday with the London Urban Sketchers in the very swish part of London around the Royal Academy.  The damp and rainy weather meant the first sketch I made was in the shelter of one of the many cafes along Piccadilly.  I'd taken out some of the Derwent pencils I'd been sent to try to see how they worked on location.


I used the colours from the 'Watercolour 12' and put down areas of colour.


Then I used one of their waterbrushes (which I already had) and went over the pencil to give a wash effect.


Finally I added line with the Derwent Graphik Line Maker 0.8.

With so many galleries and lovely shops in the area, it was easy to spend some time browsing around - especially as the weather was cold as well as damp but I did manage one more sketch.
This was the view through a small alleyway into Regent Street from the south side of Piccadilly.  Unlike the previous drawing, I used the Watercolour pencils together with the Graphik pen in a more spontaneous way and kept to a limited palette of just three colours.

Thank you to Derwent for supplying the pencils.  

You can find out more information about the London Urban Sketchers at http://urbansketchers-london.blogspot.co.uk/



Saturday, April 16, 2016

After the sketchcrawl


Discussing the day's work at the end of today's sketchcrawl in London.  Will post drawings tomorrow.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Watercolour pencils


It was lovely to receive a complimentary parcel of goodies from Derwent Pencils recently!  The weather was so lovely yesterday that I thought it would be a good opportunity to try out some of the pencils by drawing some bluebells in my back garden.  

I started off drawing the bluebells with my usual materials to give me a benchmark.

 Then it was on to the first set of pencils, the 'Inktense 12'.  
(I used a Derwent waterbrush, which I already had, to 'mix' the colours)


I tried using the Inktense pencils combined with the 'Graphik Line Maker 0.8'.


 
Moving on to the 'Watercolour 12' set which has a different selection of colours.

Finally just with the Graphik Line Maker, a very thin one at 0.2.

 

Here's the double page spread in my sketchbook, which is a large Moleskine Watercolour one.

It was great try out some new materials and now that I have an idea of what can be achieved, I'm going to try the pencils out on location soon.

Thank you to Derwent for supplying the pencils.



Friday, April 8, 2016

Drawing workshop in Brighton

I had a really enjoyable day yesterday at a drawing workshop in Brighton run by Debbie Hinks.
We started by making ten minute studies of the model.
First a standing pose...
then a seated one...
 

...then using continuous line on black paper.


For the main pose which lasted over an hour, we switched to colour.
It's been a while since I used pastels and charcoal, or have been to a tutored class, and it was a refreshing experience!

Find out more about Debbie's classes at http://debbiehinks.com/

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Drawing class

Pastels and charcoal today at a great class in Brighton.  I'll do a post about the workshop later in the week but here's a quick photo of one of my drawings.