This is a chair from my mother's house. It's my attempt at EDM challenge number 30. My parents have had it for many years; I remember sitting on it when I was a child. It was my favourite because you could swing round and round on it!
Rotring+Art+Pen sketches EDM
I've always had problems drawing boats, so when I was down on the South Coast recently I took the chance to spend some time sketching at Lymington. This is a great place to find boats; there are almost too many to choose from, from large fishing boats to tiny dinghies. 
It's one of the most popular sailing centres in the country, located on the sheltered western Solent. I've sailed there a lot in the past, but don't currently have a boat.
These are all very simple boats, though some of them are done from quite tricky (or me!) angles. All done with a Rotring art pen.
boats pen+and+ink Rotring+Art+Pen sketches Lymington
Continuing with my efforts to get back into the (more or less) daily sketching habit, here are a couple more EDM challenges. The first was a blind contour drawing done with a Rotring art pen, with the wash done later. The mobile phone was done with a a Copic multiliner. More to come soon!
I just took this quiz to find out my crayon colour! Who'd have thought it!
| You Are a Green Crayon |
 Your world is colored in harmonious, peaceful, natural colors. While some may associate green with money, you are one of the least materialistic people around. Comfort is important to you. You like to feel as relaxed as possible - and you try to make others feel at ease. You're very happy with who you are, and it certainly shows! Your color wheel opposite is red. Every time you feel grounded, a red person does their best to shake you. |
Time to get back into the EDM weekly challenge habit after being away so much over the past month or so. This is a spray bottle, which I use to wet my paints and keep the paper wet when I'm working in watercolour. This is done with a Rotring art pen and Pentel water brush.
We had a great time in New York, getting there two days before the second of my conferences started. We took the Circle Line tour around Manhattan, which was excellent. It's amazing how much of the Upper West Side looks from the river to be rolling, tree-covered hills! We also went up the Empire State Building, went to see a Broadway show, and generally acted the typical tourists! The girls were very excited by the shops, especially given the very favourable exchange rate at the moment. And I enjoyed a trip to Pearl's on Canal Street. Sketching time was again very limited, but here are a couple from an afternoon in Central Park.
New York City, Circle Line, Empire State Building, Central Park, pen and ink, sketches
I'm finally back in Oxford and have cleared the backlog of work sufficiently to have a moment to scan some sketches. We had a great trip. I was last in Philadelphia about 25 years ago, and was surprised to see that it now has skyscrapers. When I was there, you weren't allowed to build higher than the statue of Penn on City Hall. I think it's a shame (and apparently some think it has resulted in a curse on the city's baseball team, though it didn't seem to hurt them on the night we went to see them play!). But there were a lot of familiar things too, like Reading Terminal Market, Society Hill, and Penn's Landing. Of course the two highlights are Independence National Historical Park, home of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, and the Art Museum. At the latter I couldn't resist running up the steps, Rocky-style! Even though it was close to 100 degrees!!
The collection at the latter is really outstanding. We didn't have time to do it justice, really, but concentrated on 18th and 20th century European works. One of my favourites is the painting of the Houses of Parliament burning by Turner.
Unfortunately, it was a working trip really, so there wasn't much time for art. But I did manage to do a couple of quick sketches, of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
I'm off on my travels again tomorrow, this time slightly further from home. I'm going to be in Philadelphia and New York City until 15th August. Unfortunately, this is mostly a working trip, but I should get a few days of down time to roam around with my sketch book. See you all when I get back!
This is the small lighthouse at the entrance to Ardrishaig harbour, which is at the eastern end of the Crinan Canal. This was done with a Rotring Art Pen in my small W&N sketchbook.
This is a very quick sketch, done at Castle Dounie, which overlooks the Sound of Jura. I didn't have long because my rather impatient family weren't keen on hanging around in the cold wind, despite the stunning views. You can see the entrance to the Gulf of Corryvreckan, which lies between the islands of Jura and Scarba. It is famous for its whirlpool (at the other end of the Gulf), which is created by strong tidal flows and rock pinnacles on the sea bed. George Orwell was once caught in it, and was lucky to survive.
Here's another painting from my recent holiday. This one is a bit larger, a 1/4 sheet. More practice with grey skies!
I'm just back from my trip to Argyll on the west coast of Scotland. We were staying in a small village called Ardrishaig, which is on the banks of Loch Fyne, a large sea loch on the eastern side of the Kintyre peninsula, famous for the quality of its seafood. It is a beautiful part of Scotland, with sea, mountains, islands, beaches...everything you could want, provided the weather stays fine! This is a watercolour sketch of part of Loch Fyne.
I've been away on holiday on Scotland for the past week, hence my lack of posting. Over the next few days I'll post some of the sketches I did while I was away. In the meantime, here's a photograph to wet your appetite.
I haven't done the EDM weekly challenge for a few weeks, partly because I've been busy. Also, I think maybe it's one of those things that if you can just get out of the habit of doing. But since I have several sponges lying around, I don't really have an excuse not to do this one. So, here it is. I hope this means I'm back in the habit again! This is done with Copic multiliners and Inktense pencils.
This month's topic on Making a Mark is flowers in art. There are some wonderful links in this post; anyone with even the slightest interest in flower painting should take a look. I've been continuing to experiment with loose approaches to flowers, using lots of water, and as part of this have produced a few studies of lavender. Here are a couple. They're not really loose and watery enough, now I come to look at them again. Still, that gives me an excuse to have another go!
When the rain drove me inside yesterday, I did a quick sketch of this chandelier inside the spookily now almost deserted old Radcliffe Infirmary (mentioned in the previous post). I couldn't take long because, ironically, the lights weren't working! It's not particularly accurate, but then it was a pretty complicated thing to draw in the gathering gloom! Plus, it's pretty wonky IRL, so who's going to know? The little tower in the corner is on the roof of the hospital's chapel.
Tonight I had the chance to spend about half an hour making a sketch of the fountain at the front of the old Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. It's an historic site: the hospital opened in 1770, but it closed in January this year, with all its functions moving to a new site in Oxford. The original building is very interesting, but behind it is an ugly sprawl of buildings that have been put up over the years. The site has been taken over by Oxford University, who are going to turn it into teaching and research facilities. They'll have to preserve the original building, but I expect the rest will go.
Time for a return to graphite. I like to use lots of different media -- watercolour, pen and ink, coloured pencil -- but I still find it hard to beat graphite. The control and subtlety of tone that one can get are unrivalled (at least, I can't rival it!). This is a bit of hawthorn, very common around here.
Here's another version of the girl that I posted a while back, this time with added pigeons! The vague shapes on the upper right were supposed to represent a flurry of feathers as more birds hurried over!! The fact that I've had to tell you this shows how well that worked! :( Part of the reason for doing this was to experiment with a new squirrel mop that I've just got from Jackson's Art Supplies; their own brand ones are currently on sale with a 60% discount, so I couldn't resist. I've never used a squirrel brush before; I'm amazed both by how much water it holds and by how soft it is.
