My first watercolour in years

Years and years ago, I was a bit of a dab hand at watercolours. I took some lessons and really liked the effects that you could achieve with the paints. I didn't really go for your typical pale washed out landscape scenes though. I was more into painting castle ruins and old graveyards (yes, I was one of *those* teenagers.... and now I'm one of *those* adults). I particularly liked painting entire scenes in different shades of the same colour, just using water to intensify or lighten the hue.

But then I went to university and lost interest in painting and drawing, which was a shame. Since I've started sketching again, I've been itching to pick up the watercolours again. Unfortunately, I got duped into buying a cheapo set a few months ago and when I finally got around to using them I found that the quality of the paint was terrible. One colour had actually separated from the water in the tube and just made a horrible mess when I tried to use it. So that put me off for a while.

Then I went to Bristol Fine Art at the top of Park Street and bought a fantastic little set by Windsor & Newton. It was expensive, but it really does make a difference, in my opinion. The colours look really good and the paint goes much further than the cheaper brands.

Anyway, I'm slowly starting to try to build up my competence at using these paints again. I'm nowhere near at the level I was all those years ago, but I'm enjoying messing around with the paints and relearning those little accidental techniques where, at first, you think you've completely messed up the painting but then as it dries you realise that it actually looks pretty cool... That's one of the things I love about watercolours - they more often than not look way better than you were expecting them to, once they've dried :)

A couple of weeks ago, The Bristol Sketch Initiative took part in our second Sketchcrawl, which took us up to Brandon Hill on a freezing January morning. I did a quick sketch of some steps which I didn't like at all at the time. But when I got home afterwards I threw some paint at it, and I think it turned out fairly ok.

Yeah, it's not going to win any prizes, but I like it :)

My new sketch journal

I think I've finally found a sketch journal to suit me. After sketching last Saturday, I was walking down Park Street in Bristol and popped into one of the millions of office supplies / stationary stores along the way. The search for the perfect sketch journal has become something of an addiction for me. I cannot walk past a shop that sells paper without sticking my head in to see if they've got something that will make me actually want to open it and decorate its pages with my scribbles.

So far, my search had been fruitless...

And then, last Saturday, I found it. And I've done more sketching this week than I've probably done in the last three months. Yay! Here's some of what I've done. You can click on the photos to enlarge them (although I can't promise they'll look any better).

 

The first sketch of the new journal... still struggling with the life drawing though...

But I'm working my way through Bridgman's Life Drawing and starting to get the hang of it.

I was in Suffolk for a few days this week and the gorgeous hotel I stay in has a fabulous open fireplace, which I had a go at sketching.

And finally, this is a table in my hotel room, which for some reason I felt compelled to draw.

Here's hoping the journal continues to work its mojo :)

The worst daily blogger in the world

I guess I'm still working up to the idea of a "sketch per day"...

In the meantime, here are some more recent drawings that I've done. I've temporarily taken a break from The Book to focus a bit more on learning how to draw people when I'm out and about with the Bristol Sketchers. Chris, one of the sketchers, gave me a loan of this book...

... which describes how to draw the human body in various poses as well as specific exercises for various anatomical parts. I have to admit that the book can seem a little intimidating at first because the sketches seem so detailed and complex. I had a go at drawing the first figure, whereby you build up the image from different lines, but I think my insecurities got the better of me. The drawing on the left is my first attempt. It seemed to start out ok, but it went a bit wrong as I started drawing the legs.

The image on the right is my attempt at the next drawing. For this one, Bridgman suggests that the human body can be represented by three solid masses: the head, the chest and the hips. Once I got my own head around this idea, I found it slightly easier to draw the body and feel that I got the proportions slightly better.

At the time I was having a go at drawing the above I was working in Lancaster, staying at the Holiday Inn. And I had (and still have) a horrible cold. Let's just say the Holiday Inn in Lancaster is not the most inspiring place to be at any time, let alone when you're feeling sick and miserable. I had a go at sketching my horrendously bland surroundings from my sick bed, and this was the result...

It's not amazing (but then, neither was the room) but it's a small step towards keeping a sketching journal and reaching that holy grail of a sketch per day ;)

In other news, last Saturday the sketching group went to Cabot Circus in Bristol. It was an interesting place to draw because of the various architectural features (swooping glass domes, brickwork, steelwork, etc.), the gazillions of shoppers and the gaudy Christmas decorations. My first sketch was the view from outside Starbucks up on the third level. I was trying to focus on drawing the outlines of the buildings and various structures, rather than getting bogged down in the details. However, the shape of the roof was really difficult to capture and I ended up getting a bit frustrated with it. So the drawing didn't turn out exactly as I wanted, but I think I'm getting better at using perspective.

After this, I headed downstairs to the ground level for a gingerbread latte and to have a go at sketching the stairs beside House of Fraser. I found this interesting because of the shape of the stairs, especially as it retreated back into the guts of the shopping centre, but then there's this open space above it with glass barriers and the ridiculous reindeer Christmas decoration...

Aside from the fact that the reindeer's head looks like it's exploding, I'm pretty happy with this one. It's also the first time I've tried to properly include some people in my drawing. There was a little girl leaning against the glass barrier just looking down and people watching, and, most importantly, not moving, so I thought I'd have a quick go at sketching her. Her dad was in the background, so I included him too.

After sketching, a few of us headed out on a massive art trail of south Bristol - the Paintworks, Totterdown and the BV Studios in Bedminster. Then on Sunday I went to Bath to catch the last day of Don McCullin's "Shaped by War" photography exhibition which was immense. Whilst the war photos (Vietnam, Cambodia, Biafra, etc.) were incredibly moving and powerful, it was his photos of Whitechaple in London that really struck a chord with me. He has a way of making the mundane and the ordinary look kind of beautiful - something that I'd love to be able to do. I think I'm getting better at taking those kinds of photographs, but I definitely need to start lugging my camera around with me (in addition to my sketchbook) so that I've always got it when I see that perfect opportunity.

Sketches from today

This morning, I headed into Bristol with the sketching group to the St. Nicholas Market on Corn Street. It's a great place - loads of stalls, indoors and outdoors, selling all kinds of art and clothes and bits 'n' pieces. It's usually fairly busy on a Saturday too, so ideal for sketching. I was feeling a bit aprehensive, having not done any sketching at all (again) this week. But I tried not to let that put me off...

To start off with, a few us out sat outside (in November! Amazing!) and I had a go at sketching the stalls opposite us.

I was happy enough with the finished product, but think I ended up putting too much detail in there. I think it might have turned out a bit better had I left some of that out, especially the flagstones.

I then headed into the St. Nick's Market to have a go at sketching some of the stalls in there, but to be honest there's just so much stuff that it seemed a bit impossible to try to draw any of it. 

Underneath the market is a fantastic art gallery, which is packed with some amazing local art. There were some drawings by a Bristol-based artist called Tim Lane. The Jekyll & Hyde drawing in particular really appealed to me - I love the fluidity of the two characters; the fact that you can't tell where one stops and the other begins. There's a really dark undertone to his drawings which I also loved, but I had to leave then because although the drawings were about £200 each, the gallery was offering an installment payment system and my credit card started buzzing in my pocket...

But enough about other artists :)

So, I wandered around a bit more and ended up sitting outside The Crown, looking down an alleyway past some bookshops. One of the bookshops had all these shelves outside which were piled up with books. As I was trying to draw these, my perspective went a bit wonky, and so I ended up with bookshelves that were a bit longer than they should have been, and I couldn't quite figure out how to draw the books. Anyway, the pic on the left below was my best effort.

I did also have a go at drawing another alleyway, trying to capture the sense of narrowness etc. of the space between the buildings, but I got a bit caught up in the detail of an iron gate on one of the doors and then ran out of time...

So that's definitely an area that I need to work on - perspectives and vanishing points and all that. I'm starting to think about whether it would be useful to take one or two art classes now to learn how to do these kinds of things. I'll have to work my Interwebs skillz to see what I can find ;)

Waterfront sketching

Unfortunately I didn't do any sketching last week. Entirely my own fault - I felt particularly lazy and uninspired all week. Unfortunately that also meant that when I finally opened The Book to pick up where I left off, I felt a bit intimidated all over again.

However, when we went sketching on Saturday, I managed to overcome the little voice in the back of my mind that kept saying "Boats? You can't draw boats!" I decided to use a gel pen again, as I find that it forces me to slow down, to take more notice of what I'm trying to draw, and to pay more attention to details. With a pencil, I suppose I always know at the back of my mind that I can erase any errant lines, but with the pen, I don't have that option and so I've found that it focuses my mind more.

I only managed to draw one boat, but I'm pretty happy with it. The proportion of some of the details isn't great (e.g., the boat was actually longer than it seems in my drawing, and the mast at the front is too short), but I think I managed to capture the essence of the boat that I was looking at. Unfortunately, I got a bit carried away with the old poetic license and started trying to draw in a tree in the background (because I felt that it looked a little bare without) and then sort of messed it up...

But, it's all progress, right? :)

Thinking back on it, it probably would have been better to leave the background blank and then use some watercolour to give it some definition. But because I used a gel pen, the watercolour would just have washed away the ink, so... it'll have to stay the way it is. Next Saturday, I'm going to try drawing in biro so I can add some colour later if it suits.

In the meantime, back to The Book!

A week later

OK, so I haven't been posting a sketch per day, but I have been sketching daily! I've continued working my way through the book and doing the various exercises. Although I feel as though I've improved a bit, I wasn't sure how this would translate from the relatively safe environment of a book telling me how to draw a prescribed image with step-by-step instructions to drawing in a real-life environment.

So this weekend's meeting of The Bristol Sketch Initiative was the perfect intermediate because we went to the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery - a real-life environment that doesn't move :)

I started off in the Dead Zoo (a.k.a. the stuffed animals area) where I had a go at sketching Alfred the gorilla who used to live in Bristol Zoo. Alfred appealed to me because his profile is a very simple shape and it felt like (Darwin-haters look away now) one step closer to being able to draw people.

After Alfred, I wandered around and found the display of stuffed birds. There were a whole load of birds caught in various stages in perching and flight. The one below interested me because again I loved the shape of his outstretched wings. The bird was actually clutching a dead rabbit but I decided not to draw that part...

Part of the museum includes an art gallery and there was an exhibition by a Japanese artist (who's name I can't remember - argh! I'll try to find out and will update this post) which consisted of a series of large drawings of various insects. Now, I'm not a fan of insects as anyone who knows me will testify, but there was one butterfly drawing which really attracted me. I think it may have been because of the colours he used - mixes of purple and blue watercolours - and I wanted to try to replicate it.

I drew this one in pen rather than pencil because I quite like the cleaner, bolder lines produced by the pen and to me the pen seems to flow better than a pencil. I always feel a lot more pressure when using a pen though because you can't erase any mistakes so you've got to be a lot more careful. But I think this one turned out really well so it's given me a bit more confidence to use pen again in the future :)

Finally then I headed downstairs to the Egyptian display. After wandering around amongst the Egyptian coffins and mummified cats (of which there were a lot), I found a stone head of the god Atum, the creator, tucked away in a corner and had a go at drawing him.

All in all, I really enjoyed the day and felt like I'd made a huge improvement on last week. I felt a lot more confident about drawing this week and I definitely feel it's a direct result of using the book. Rather than trying to draw "animals" or "people" I found myself focusing on shapes and lines and gradually building up the picture from there. And I'm only about a third of the way through the book so hopefully will keep improving!