Things I might have seen in London, part 9

Here are a few more sketches. Sorry about the delay.

The locations of each of these, clockwise from the upper left, are: St Katharine's Wharf, St. Mary Abbott's churchyard, Berkeley Square, the Gherkin building, Euston station, King's Cross station, Bloomsbury at Prince's street, and finally the Olympia Exhibition Center.

Things I might have seen in London, part 8

The pace is picking up at work, and I have less time to sketch than before. Still, I managed to squeeze out a few.

Things I might have seen in London, part 7

I like using grids as a way of imposing discipline on my approach to drawing. There are a number of ways to use grids. In this case, I drew a grid in light pencil on a sketchbook page. I then made it a goal to fill that grid with tonal studies by the end of the day as I wandered around. The fact that each composition was a fixed rectangle helped to eliminate another decision from the process. Restrictions like this make it easier for me to focus my efforts.



There are other ways to use grids. Thumbnail sketches work really well in a grid format. Here's a "bus sketching" session:



When sketching from the imagination rather than from life, using a closely spaced grid can stimulate creative thinking. Allowing lines from one grid box to flow into the next permits an uninterrupted flow of ideas. Not all of these thumbnails will be useful, but in this approach quantity comes first. Discerning the best image becomes a process of elimination.

Things I might have seen in London, part 6

Floppycabs. Floppy but evil!

A church, too. Nice to see that an old church still knows how to get funky.

Things I might have seen in London, part 5

A view of London from the hill behind the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. This is where the Royal Greenwich Observatory and the prime meridian are located. Also on this page, an interesting house in Earls Court and a view of the front of the Natural History museum.

Things I might have seen in London, part 4

Some buildings...

London Sketchcrawl

I do this every weekend, but this time I had a little company. Once or twice a year, a little group of sketch fanatics gets together in various cities around the globe and goes out for a "sketchcrawl". After they are done, they post the results to the forums at www.sketchcrawl.com. Only one other dude joined the London sketchcrawl, but no matter. Here are the results of my efforts:

Things I might have seen in London, part 3

There is a fascinating little place in London called Neal's Yard. It's a tiny courtyard of shops and cafes formed by the back sides of the tall, old buildings which line three streets. The real joy of the place is in the discovery. It's so wonderful to wander down some narrow alley and and emerge into a hidden courtyard with careening balconies, overflowing flowerboxes, and the smell of baked goods. The drawing on the right was inspired by that location, but only in a very general way. The other two were drawn in locations around Kensington and Knightsbridge.

Things I might have seen in London, part 2

Views from around the city. Various places including Battersea Park, the British Museum and the Royal Albert Hall. Click on the images for a full size view.

Things I might have seen in London

First upon arriving in London, July 23rd. A view of Knightsbridge:



Here are some from August 4-6. Locations include the south bank of the Thames, Battersea park, Old Spitalfields Market, St Paul's Cathedral and Waterloo station. I've been doing a lot of exploring. More to come.

Dredging up the old stuff

Okay, new blog. What to do...

First off, I'll let everyone know that this is a sketchblog. As the sketchbook grows, so will the blog. A lot of very articulate blogs have some excellent things to say on the subject of drawing, animation, media and so on. This blog, however, will be mostly about showing everyone what I've been up to.

I have sketchblogged in the past through my LiveJournal account. At that time I was going out on a regular basis and drawing people, mostly on the subway in Toronto, or in the Detroit area. That activity ended around the end of 2005 when I started to become quite busy with freelance work. I still maintain the LiveJournal, but it is more well suited for keeping in touch with friends than for sketchblogging. I am in London now, working on a feature film. One of the main reasons that I came to London was to gather material for the sketchbook.

For starters, I present some work from the old blog. Enjoy!