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I am doing a lot of waiting at the moment. I can't proceed with my mural until I get the go-ahead on the rough and I am also waiting to hear back from publishers about book projects. I hate that 'in-limbo' feeling, so have decided to get on with other things and forget about it all.
Over the Bank Holiday weekend, I was inspired by all the different work I saw at Sheffield's Open Up. It's so lovely to visit other local artists, especially in their work space. Since the weather was so lovely at the start of the week, I took my pastels out into the Peak District for some sketching:
I don't normally use pastels on location, as they are really messy, tricky to transport and the results are a bit of a nightmare to get home unscathed (especially as I can never resist the double-page spread). But I tried doing it once last year, during a SketchCrawl out in Edale and was really pleased with the results...
...so I had another go on Tuesday morning. The one below was what I spent most time on. The light changed a lot, as the sun was in and out, which was quite a challenge, but I didn't mind, as I wasn't trying for naturalism, more an impression, capturing colours and shapes:
I tried fixing it, but of course, all the colours were immediately dimmed and it lost its impact (grrrrrrr...), so I then spent ages reworking it, to brighten it up, and didn't spray it again.
Then I did the drawing at the top very quickly, as the sun had gone and things had turned windy and cold. I used a 2nd sketchbook, so as not to damage the first drawing any more than was necessary.
I was back in the studio by lunchtime, so felt very pleased with myself. It was just what I needed to kick-start the day.You can see the rest of my sketchbooks on my website or, if you are interested to watch me create a sketch, take a look at this film from my YouTube channel:
File under: things-you-draw-while-on-the-telephone.
I'm getting over the flu and itching to get outside. I have all things green on the brain, in particular vegetables. I'm going to try my hand at some container gardening this summer, which begs the question: anyone have any good recommendations for fruit or veggies that do well in pots?
By:
Allen Capoferri,
on 4/22/2013
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I picked a long strand of these flowers yesterday on my morning walk with the dog. It grows wildly and climbs over everything. It's Carolina Jessamine, the state flower
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| watercolor |
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| papercut silhouette |
My favorite wild flowers are cropping up by the side of the road, but I need to bring a knife to take them home. I'll show you some drawings of those pricklies tomorrow.
By:
sketched out,
on 4/15/2013
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Maggie and Buttercup were wild about tea.
The word of the week, over there at Illustration Friday is “wild,” but all I could scare up was this docile boar, so he’ll just have to do.
I live near a NJ turnpike rest stop. It's a short walk from my house. Tonight I walked there to draw some folks because I'm angry, irritable and I love to do stupid things on Sunday nights I guess.
Last month, Sheffield University began allowing the public limited access to a secret, little, teaching museum, which was created in 1905 for the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences: the Alfred Denny Museum.
It's just one room, but full of wonderfully traditional, wooden-framed display cases and slender, wooden drawers, all of which are crammed with skeletons, taxidermy and odd things floating in jars. Sketching heaven. Unfortunately, we were only allowed 1 hour, and that included the very interesting 20 minute talk by a 3rd year student, about the acquisition of some of the stranger creatures.
I whizzed round with my sketchbook and captured specimens as they caught my eye. I was using my brand new Sailor pen for the first time:
It's designed for Japanese calligraphy, but it is just the ticket for on-location sketching as, though it's a fountain pen, it allows for extreme variations in line width, and glides really smoothly across the page, because of its curiously bent nib:
The sketch below is only about a 3rd of the massive python skeleton mounted on the wall in the university foyer:
Some interesting news: the museum's curator likes the sound of SketchCrawling and it looks like we might get back in soon, for a longer session this time, just for sketchers. Can't wait!!
The other nice thing, was that I got 2 new recruits to SketchCrawl North while I was drawing. That's what I love about sketching in public: people just come up and chat, so you make all sorts of new connections.
Sketchbook snippets from the past seven days. And now, upwards and onwards to the weekend at hand.
We've tried a few times to film my workshops and lectures, but the events which have granted us permission to film, have all taken place in a shared space, like in a library, which means too much background noise. The recording John made at the Hallam University lecture was the same: there were students in an adjacent studio, chatting, laughing, coughing or just walking about, which on the film made it sound like my audience was bored!
So, we decided to try something different - a film of me sketching out on location. We went for a walk up into the Limb Valley and John filmed over my shoulder at I painted.
It was weird though: I had thought, after all these years of sketching in public, that being filmed would be no problem at all but, for some reason, I found it incredibly off-putting. The camera, which needed to be right beside my face, to provide the best view of the sketchbook, felt really oppressive. The pressure to do something 'good' meant, of course, I was convinced I was creating rubbish from the very outset. Despite my smiles at the end of the film, I was very grumpy (poor John)! It's a good thing we decided to go for a voice-over, otherwise you'd have had to listen to all my grumbling and swearing.
Hopefully you can't tell that from the film though. I still think I've done better sketches, but I'm hoping it's interesting to watch it evolve on the page and hear why I am making various creative decision during the process.
If you do enjoy it, please share it with your friends. Plus, if you like this one and haven't yet seen any of the others, take a look at the film page on my website or subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Over the Easter weekend, we had (bizarrely) two music festivals here: the Sheffield Sessions folk festival and CADS Blues and Beer Festival. It was clearly too good a SketchJam opportunity to miss!
We sketchers gathered up our drawing gear and got stuck in on Saturday afternoon at
The Shakespeare pub. Les and I sketched there
last year. This year we were five strong.
It was a tiny room, full from the start. Despite this, more and more musicians turned up during the first hour, squeezing into every corner, standing up or sitting on instrument cases, joining in with whatever music was in progress.
I soon found I could only see bits and pieces, around the people sitting in front of me, so I had to move the pints aside and sit up on a table. Luckily, it turned out to be very comfortable up there.
The music was wonderful and the musicians such a joy to draw. I love the challenge of trying to capture the energy and movement, as well as the difficulty of making sense of hands that are in constant motion.
It all died down about 5.30 and most of the musicians and sketchers left. Les and I were waiting for our other halves, before moving on to the blues festival in the evening, so we stayed behind. Which was lucky because, less than an hour later, a fresh batch of musicians began to trickle in. They took turns playing for one another, or helped out by adding harmonies or accompaniment:
The blues event later in the evening was completely different. We were in a basement gig space, painted black, with a tiny stage in one corner. It wasn't too packed, but the audience were all standing and the light was very low - neither of which were ideal for sketching.
I gave it a go anyway. Standing up meant just one pencil at a time, but there was no way to use colour in the dark anyway. Luckily I had a tin full of little, pre-sharpened end-stubs of soft graphite sticks. I filled my pockets and I worked my way through them, drawing as best I could.
I couldn't tell whether what I was doing was really working, because I couldn't judge tonal values or see much of my mark-making, but could see enough to be able to gauge space on the page, which was enough. I was encouraged when John used the torch on his phone to reveal that the drawings were in fact looking pretty good.
After the first band though, I once again found my view disappearing and, being short, I was only getting glimpses between heads. Under normal circumstances, I might well have given up drawing at this point but, because we had been out since lunchtime (and it was by now about 10pm), I had drunk more lager than I would generally...
By now any residual self-consciousness was long gone, so I climbed up onto a ledge at the side of the room, which gave me a view over the audience's heads:
We started home just after midnight, with the event still in full swing behind us. Unfortunately, because it was that evening when the clocks went forward, it was actually getting on for two in the morning by the time my head hit the pillow. What a great day though - a big thanks to my sketch-buddy Les for suggesting it!
You can see some of the other sketches people did in the afternoon on the
SketchCrawl North page. There are also lots of my other
sketchbooks on my website.
If you would like to come along to a sketching event, just
drop me an email and I'll put you on the list for my e-newsletter, which will give you all the information you need to join us.
Events are free and untaught: it's all for fun. We are just a bunch of people who enjoy sharing the experience of drawing together on location.
By:
sketched out,
on 4/1/2013
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sketched out
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Yes folks, more tortured puns from a humble April fool.
By:
sketched out,
on 3/31/2013
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Quickly eggsecuted and puns intended!
Happy Happy, everyone!!!
We had a SketchCrawl day last weekend, but we woke up to thick snow. We were supposed to be drawing in a local park in the morning, then capturing a performance by the Sheffield Oratorio Chorus in the afternoon.
The concert was cancelled, which was quite ironic, since we were due to draw them last winter and were snowed off then too. I decided to give the park a go anyway. Even if nobody else turned up, the walk through the beautiful snow and the cosy park cafe at the end seemed reason enough, so I donned long-johns, multiple layers, walking boots, gaiters, silly hat etc and headed out.
The 6 inch deep snow made it quite a trek. I would have loved to draw the trees, all picked out in white, but it was really very chilly so, like everybody else that morning, I took refuge in the cafe. It was pretty chaotic in there: quite lively, quite well stuffed and very noisy.
Only 3 other sketchers made it. Colleen had headed off alone into the snow by the time I arrived (making me think of poor Captain Oates...). I huddled with Martin and Heather in one corner. John joined us after a bit, though without a sketchbook, so he didn't count.
Drawing people in cafes is always quite a challenge; much
more tricky than trains. People move, to chat, eat and drink (how very selfish of them). At least I had a nice big table to lay out my sketching bits, with no danger of losing my pencils in crevices...
When I had finished these sketches, I rewarded myself with a nice lunch and a mochachino (John got lunch too, though he didn't do any work, so I'm not sure he deserved any). Unlike some of my sketcher friends, I gobbled it up while it was hot and didn't wait to draw it:
Then, reluctantly, we pulled our hats back on and started the walk back up the hill.
As time keeps rushing on, I'm checking in today with my ideas for the illustration friday topic "Swim".
The first design is in honor of
Gertrude Ederle , first woman to swim the english channel.
The retro swim suit, and a weekend visit to the pool with my seven year old, made me think of water ballet, and the kaleidoscopic patterns the swimmers create. Something to play around with in the future maybe?
The internets have informed me that today is Flannery O'Connor's birthday. That being the fact, I pretty much had to draw her this afternoon.
And things I like lately: daffodils and
Monarch of the Glen. Both things are doing a bang up job at making me forget that it looks like a perpetual January in these here parts. So Old Man Winter, you can put
that in your pipe and smoke it.
This time last week, I was on the east coast, celebrating my birthday with good friends.
The coastal area around Robin Hood's Bay and Whitby is one of my favourite places and somewhere John and I return to again and again. We got engaged at Robin Hood's Bay and so started our honeymoon there too. Unbelievably, that was 20 years ago this summer, which makes me feel really rather old!
This time, we rented a lighthouse cottage, high on top of the crumbling cliffs above Whitby. Very dramatic:
Given the time of year, we were pretty lucky with the weather, though it did rain on me while I was out painting this view of the cliff. I had to stop as it got heavier, but I rather like the speckle-effect:
We mainly pottered about on the beach, as recently melted snow made it too muddy to walk along the coastal path. The boys had fun hunting fossils - there are loads to be found in that area:
I mainly hung behind, drawing and painting the cliffs and the sea.
I just love the patterns and colours you can pull out of the rocks, the water and the sky:
It was all over way too quickly. But isn't that always the case when yiu are having fun?
Things have been quite busy lately, so John and I really enjoyed the chance of a lovely weekend away recently.
I have brothers who are twins and it was their 50th birthday. We are all always busy and so don't get to spend time as often as we should, so we rented a house on the isle of Anglesey for a long weekend.
We were very lucky with the weather. It was FREEZING but, despite being Wales, it was dry and the sun came out for us, at least for a little while, each day.
It was all very laid back: getting wrapped up like Eskimos then mooching around various bays and beaches, looking at the sea birds, collecting shells, taking photos, then warming up in cafes or pubs.
As you can see, I took my sketchbook. I love drawing the big outdoors and those huge skies reflected in the pools of sea left between the sand-banks was perfect. I was lucky that the view from the house was fantastic, so I could paint and draw from the comfort of the kitchen:
But I did also take a mini-sketchbook out onto the walks and drew on the beach:
It was a bit tricky standing up in the middle of nowhere, holding onto my various pencils and my book and my waterbrush, trying to balance an open pencil case in my coat pocket... I kept dropping things and getting in a right muddle!
Worth it though. Although I can sometimes get grumpy when I am drawing-in-adversity, I still really enjoy the immediacy of it. If you're freezing to death and your friends are fast disappearing into the distance, you can't mess about and so generally do your best, most intuitive work.
She showed up in my sketchbook today. I imagine she hates eating bread crusts, keeps a pet snail in a jam jar and believes (correctly) that the neighbors are really spies.
After I finally got the Beatles song out of my head, the ideas for Illustration Friday's "yesterday" prompt just came pouring in. Does that mean I'm getting old ?
Here's a little teenager with some of yesterday's technology. I was very proud of my own walkman cassette player, and it got a lot of use...
(although I don't think I should tell you what I listened too)
As you will know, if you read this blog at all regularly, I love sketching to live music. The two things go together so well and the music (and the beer) really helps to get your sketching arm moving!
This set are from a recent evening I spent with a few of my SketchCrawl North buddies in the White Lion pub, listening to Carolan folk music in their tiny front room.
It was a very intimate experience, as the space was only about the size of the average sitting room, so we were very much on top of one another. There was no way to be discrete about the sketching - it was obvious from the outset, but the musicians took it in good part.
There were in fact about the same amount of sketchers as there were musicians!
I decided I wanted a change from my trusty watercolour pencils, so took my paints and graphite sticks instead. To ensure I stayed loose, I used the technique I learned from Richard Camara at the Lisbon Urban Sketchers Symposium: applying the colour first and the line later.
We had drawn this group once before, just under a year ago. On that occasion, during a pause in the music, the man above said 'I like to draw', so I recruited him on the spot to SketchCrawl North. He joined us for our summer sketchcrawl out in Edale. We must do that again once the weather is nice (it snowed again today - brrrrr...)
In the meantime, we are sticking with indoor locations. Our next SketchCrawl, if you want to join us, will kick off from 10am in Sheffield's Endcliffe Park cafe (brave souls can try drawing out in the park itself). Then, in the afternoon, we will again be entertained by live music: we have been invited to sketch at the rehearsal of Sheffield Oratorio Chorus, which should be amazing.
Sketching passerbys from a picture window at Starbucks in center city. I’d forgotten how crazy people could be when given a reason. I saw someone literally lying in he gutter.
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Happy first day of spring!
playing around with type and collage this morning....
I love Charlotte.
It's Friday, so how's about a sketch dump? Random things I've doodled over the course of the past few days.
And of course, vive le weekend!
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so beautiful, I love the way you are using the colors in this pictures. I can feel the sun and the wind... :-)
Beautiful colors:)What a great place to draw:)