Sketchcrawl 33

Sketchcrawl 33 began at the Tate Modern on the South bank of the Thames. We crossed the river to St Pauls Cathedral where we encountered people protesting the economic troubles. Those who know me will understand that my sketches of people tend to be somewhat whimsical. Despite that, I appreciate the serious nature of the protester's grievances. Two weeks after these drawings were made they are still camped out in front of the cathedral. The city and the cathedral management have called for them to move on.

Sketching trip to London Zoo

Here are my efforts from the last few Sketchcrawls:


Sketchcrawl 26


Sketchcrawl 28


Sketchcrawl 30


Sketchcrawl 31


Sketchcrawl 32

Landscape studies in oil

9x12 inch studies. It's been years since I have painted with oil. I am trying to retain what I have learned about colour from my gouache studies while getting used to a new medium.

Figure studies, 2009-2010

Sketchcrawl #25, London

Colour studies

Colour Studies

Colour Studies

Here are some more from the last couple of weeks. Starting to move away from experimental use of colour to something that is more representational.

A large part of the fun of this is when people come up and want to see what I am painting. I used to want privacy, but now I actually enjoy it. They are always complimentary, which is not necessarily a reflection on whatever skills I might have. Most people regard any level of painting ability as a sort of magic trick. One guy who was clearly down on his luck walked up to me at Liverpool Street Station and told me how impressed he was with the painting, then asked if I could spare some change. He found my one weakness. How could I refuse.

Colour Studies

Back to doing some colour studies. I find it remarkable that once you calibrate your colour sense to the world of the painting some remarkable things happen. What looks like grey on the palette can stand in for green in the world of the painting, for instance.Pink can become white, rust can become scarlet, olive can become black. This shift in calibration can force the viewer to respond emotionally to the painting in different ways.

Another Sketchcrawl in London

It was Sketchcrawl day again. It was a great turnout with about 7 of us in total. We walked along the South Bank of the Thames from Borough Market to Festival Hall. To see everyone's efforts, check out the forum:
http://www.sketchcrawl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=3334

London studies

Some more...

I'm back

Here are some more colour studies from around London. Each is in gouache on heavy weight paper, about 1.25 inches in height. There is no need, I've found, to create a large painting in order to explore colour and composition. When scanned at 300dpi a lot of interesting accidental details seem to pop out.

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:

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.