Dr Sketchy's Life Drawing, Bristol

Just discovered Bristol finally has Dr Sketchy's Life Drawing events. It's a great mix of burlesque entertainment and drawing - usually in a bar so there's beer too. I first heard about these a few years back and thought they sounded a lot of fun - now I know they are. My first time life drawing in 2 years or so - I was pretty rusty but I like the last sketch. Looking forward to the next one.

First up was the Diva...

The next model was Dis Charge - strikingly tall and with great make up. We were treated to a song part way through too!

The final model of the session was Daphne Dangerpants. She had a great costume which I'd love to have had more time to sketch.

Daphne minus the costume…

Really pleased with this last drawing - I like the lost edges on the arm in the shade and the tattoo.

Matthew - iPad sketch

No life drawing today so i did this quick sketch in the harbour. I used the Adobe Ideas app. If you look on flickr there's another version with less colour - I can't decide which is best.

Everard's Print Works

I made a short video about using Adobe Ideas for sketching and this is the subject I chose to draw. It's Edward Everard's print works in Bristol. They were designed in about 1900 and feature wonderful tiles illustrating some of Everard's influences - Gutenberg and William Morris. It's a beautiful building sandwiched between some modern attrocities - infact the building was almost demolished in 1967. That really would have been a great shame. Bristol lost much of its architectural heritage in the war but it seems they couldn't stop after either.

The sketch took about 50 mins. I'll add the video as well as soon as Adobe have released it.

Went to the City Museum and Art Gallery today. There's a new exhibition of 'Art from the New World'. It's works by Coop, Todd Schorr, Gary Basemann and the like. It was fun and plenty of people were coming to view it which is good. I think I preferred looking at the old paintings though. Some terrific views of Bristol from the 1800's and some with all sorts of hidden messages and lectures on the dangers of drinking, gambling, joining the army... What really stunned me though were some cut paper art works. Tiny illustrations made by cutting holes into white paper. The cuts were miniscule - perhaps 1-2mm long and 0.1mm wide! The images depicted coats of arms, text, trees with every branch visible - it was astonishing. I had to sit down and have a brownie after that. Here part of the main hall with some New World art at the bottom and a dinosaur roaming about upstairs...

Boatyard

Another quick lunchtime sketch. These are the boats to the left of the one I did before under the scaffold. These are all quite small - about 5x15cm. The sketches, not the boats...

Boatyard

Still experimenting with the watercolours. In the first drawing I got carried away with the shading and ended up scribbling all over the place so in the next I tried to use a lighter touch...

Matthew Watercolour

Had another go at the Matthew - a replica of John Cabot's boat in which he discovered Newfoundland (Although I have a feeling that the Native Americans knew it was there all along)...

SS Great Britain

Another quick watercolour - I drew it a bit too small so it gets rather muddled around the windows. The buildings behind are darker than I would have liked too. Still, it's a lovely ship. It sits in the dock in which it was built in the early 1840's. Designed by Brunel it was one of the first ships to be made of iron, to have a screw and was 1,000 tons larger than any other ship in existence...

Dockside Train Carriage

Lunchtime quickie...

Energie again

We're having beautiful weather at the moment which makes the docks a very pleasant place to sit at lunchtime. Here's the big houseboat 'Energie' again...

Avona

Here's another boat in the docks. I like all the jumbled equipment on the deck...

Energie

Quick sketch of the front of one of the house boats in the docks. Overworked it as usual - I'm finding it really hard not to do too much when it comes to watercolour.

Cardboard

At work our fancy printer cartridges come in nice sturdy cardboard boxes. I've used them to make odd things every now and again (snoots for flashes etc) but I thought it would be a fun material to draw on.

Here's a couple of tests. On the second I was trying out some different pens including an extra broad copic marker and a weird Kuretake chalk pastel pen. When you first draw with it it's invisible and then slowly the white appears as the 'ink' dries. I need to experiment a bit more but it's fun to have a few more tones to play with...

The Chieftain

Went out with a view to doing a pretty watercolour for my mum's birthday. Instead I drew a lifeboat.

It's a Liverpool class lifeboat - which came into service after the war. This was the last one to retire in 1982. More info and photos can be found here. It was beautifully constructed - particularly the cabin which had been made seamless by bending (presumably steamed) planks around from the roof to the sides. Set into this were some very nice brass fittings and portholes.

This is the original sketch...

But I think I prefer the monotone version...
(Don't worry - I did some flowers for Mum this morning)

Wrington and Bristol

Couple of quick sketches done whilst out and about...

Bristol and Clifton Oil Gas Company

Here are the remains of the old gas works on the other side of the docks. Apparently they date from 1870 and used to produce gas from whale oil.

Boats and Chimneys

Another quick one of the docks - this time the boat yard alongside the SS Great Britain (on the left). The second sketch is of a building I spotted from the rooftop which has lots of chimneys - my sketch is actually 4 short - there ought to be 19 along the top row...

Bristol - it's not like it used to be.

Ever since one sold for £1m the whole of the floating harbour seems to be being covered with apartments. Some are ok to look at, some are hideous and some are blocking out the view we used to have of the SS Great Britain.

Clarke Bond Building

Another nice building just around the corner. I have a vague recollection that this might have been something to do with Brunel or the SS Great Britain - which is just around the corner, but I might be wrong...

Not sure if adding the streetview thing is a good idea but here it is anyway...


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Pens, lovely pens

My replacement pens arrived today so in celebration here's some interesting industrial buildings near where I work.




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