Things I might have seen in London, part 10

In colour with a "u", here are some gouache studies which I have been working on over the past couple of weeks. It's a challenge to work in the rain and snow sometimes. Look closely and you can see some rain spots. I learned a very important lesson in the course of working on these: zinc white sucks. I bought a cheap Windsor and Newton gouache set which came with zinc white. This pigment has the unfortunate property of absorbing colour from pigments that are applied on top of it. The solution: use permanent white instead. Permanent white uses titanium dioxide as a pigment base. It's superb, very opaque, and layers quite well.

Sketchcrawl #18

The eighteenth International Sketchcrawl (www.sketchcrawl.com) was last Saturday. I'm happy to report that attendance was up by 50%! Yes, this time there were three of us.

Thanks to Chris and Alfonso who showed up. It was a full day of sketching, and as usual I felt that I walked too much and drew too little. The fact is that every location has something to offer, if you are open to it. Here are the results, starting with a little gouache study which I created while waiting to begin:



Rainy day tourists at the Tower of London:


Trafalgar Square and "Nando's" restaurant:


Tate Modern and Southwark Cathedral: