2 caricatures and a house

I've always struggled with caricatures - or indeed any sort of likeness. I even have trouble just recognising people. Perhaps it's some kind of face dyslexia? Still, I have a bash at a caricature every now and then and I think this one of David Mitchell sort of worked - even if he's not quite so tubby in real life...

Here's another try at a caricature - this time it's the latest Dr Who - Matt Smith. I tried Bill Wyman after this and just couldn't do it. You'd have thought he'd be easy...

Finally, here's a quick sketch of a delapidated building. All of these were done with the Zen Brush app on the iPad...

Antigua

Just returned from two weeks in the sun - jolly nice it was too. So nice in fact that I didn't do half the amount of drawing I planned to do - prefering to lounge around on beaches, float in the warm turquoise water, drink rum punch...

Not making you jealous am I?..

Here's a couple from Falmouth Harbour - it was filled with the most amazing collection of super-yachts - very shiny, very expensive...

Just next to Falmouth Harbour is English Harbour and Nelson's Dockyard. Still used as a harbour and features a beautiful collection of restored buildings which were once sail lofts, workshops and stores...

I loved all the different types of palms - here's just a few of them, the second one done on the iPad...


Still battling with the watercolours - here's a couple of tries at a lobster shell...


There was a wonderful old church in the neighbouring village of Liberta. It's made of a pale green stone which can be found on the island...

Almost forgot this one. Antigua's a wonderful place but compared to where I live in the UK it can be really quite noisy at night. Tree frogs, crickets, noisy cars, distant discos, noisy neighbours and the dogs! bark, bark, bark, bark, bark.... Bark, bark, bark, bark... Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, and on, and on...

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.

Kilve

Kilve is on the Somerset coast. It's very interesting geologically - with a beach made of large sloping shelves of rock and some shaly cliffs behind. It's quite a good spot for fossil hunting too with lots of ammonites. It's only about an hour from where we live so we went for a picnic. Here the shale cliffs have eroded to leave the silhouette of a face...


... and it would be silly to go this close to Devon without stopping for a cream tea. These ruins are in the gardens of the Chantry Tea Gardens. The scones were excellent - should have only had one though...

Devon

Went camping in Devon for a few days. Didn't rain but there was a cold wind - which put us off sending much time on the beach. Still, we had a fun time exploring the area and had a nice view of Burgh Island from the tent. Here's a couple of quick sketches.

Burgh Island - with it's famous Art Deco Hotel...


Newton Ferrers and Totnes. Some of the architecture was very interesting - particularly in the back streets of Totnes - but there wasn't enough time to draw it all unfortunately...


and Dartington Hall - went a bit wrong with the windows...

Yorkshire

Went up to visit relatives who live on the edge of the North Yorkshire moors. I damaged my knee in a space hopper race so wasn't able to do much walking. Still, it gave me a bit of time to sketch.

Helmsley is a small town to the north of York with some very interesting buildings and a castle in cross-section. There's also a small, picturesque stream running through it...


I was really pleased with these two - perhaps I should just stick to one or two colours...


This is a longer one done at the remains of Jervaulx Abbey. They were great to explore. I could easily spend a month drawing there...

A very quick sketch of an interesting architectural feature in a doorway at the abbey...


We had a bit of time before our train left so we visited the train museum in York. This is a very quick sketch...


Our return train sat just outside Birmingham station just long enough for us to miss our connecting train. We had a bite to eat and I quickly sketched this tall building. (I've since found out it's the Nat West tower - and it's due to be demolished)...

Duck Racing - Plume of Feathers

There's a lovely pub near us - The Plume of Feathers. It sits in a cul-de-sac by a little stream and each year they have a duck race to raise money for local schools. There's a BBQ, refreshing drinks, live music and all afternoon plastic ducks are tipped into the top of the stream and gathered up at the bottom again. Gangs of children splash down the stream too. The water comes out of the ground in a pond called Rickford Rising and nearby are various interesting buildings presumably containg pumping gear and things to do with the sluice. This is one of them...

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...