Ceret, France

Had a week in the South of France - if you're wondering why there's no sun in England this summer it's because it's over there. Here's a few quick pen sketches I did. This is Uncle Ollies luxury camper van - once a mobile library - our home for the week...

Croissant and pain-aux-chocolat retrieval system...
Port-Vendres...
...and the river at Ceret...

Goodwood Festival of Speed

I spent most of the day taking photos but I did do a couple of quick sketches. It was rather tricky with people walking infront all the time. Excuses escuses...

If you'd like to see the photos they're here...

Photo Gallery

More from the Docks

Still wishing I could draw faster - the boats took about 20mins and the jeep 30 - Seems slow to me. Quite like the looseness of the first one though - I was trying to draw fast so perhaps that helped a bit.


I added a bit of colour. For an experiment I flipped the image - it looked horrendously distorted so I pulled it into shape and flipped it back again. Funny how I couldn't see the distortion in the original...


Here's a bit of colour for the boats too...

I Scream in Colour

I thought I'd see if I could improve the drawing by adding some colour in Photoshop. I couldn't...

Can I Have an Ice Cream?

Bristol Docks

A quick lunchtime sketch. I'm not sure if this might have been better in pen. Probably should have extended it a bit more too. Ah well...A quick lunchtime sketch. I'm not sure if this might have been better in pen. Proabably should have extended it a bit more too.

Apple Tree

Here's another one of the garden. The apple trees at the edge of the vegetable patch. I must work out a quicker way of blocking in the foliage - there's just too many leaves...

Our Garden

I've had a few days off work and yesterday the weather was quite nice so I took the opportunity to sit around in the garden doing nothing but a bit of sketching. I was quite pleased with how these came out.

As I sketched my favourite corner of the garden with its birch tree (very good for hanging the hammock off) a grass-snake slithered past. It was about 2ft long with bright yellow markings behind its head and moved completely silently. I once saw one whilst out for a walk - it seemed quite an exotic visitor to be slithering across my lawn.

This shady part of the garden is also where my cat Tom is burried - at the back near the Alliums and daisies...

This is a slowly collapsing shed - not long for this world...

And finally some Pekin Bantam chickens - the newest addition to our garden. Named Julian and Emily by Finn after his school-friends. They don't keep still for long...

Miami

I was lucky enough to go on a business trip to South Beach Miami. I ended up having quite a bit of time to myself so I explored the town a bit and then retired to the pool when it got too hot.

This is the Raleigh Hotel...



... people sunbathing around the pool...

... on Saturdays they have mermaids...


This is a part of Lincoln Avenue - a pedestrian street with lots of shops and cafes...


And finally a few sketches done while waiting to board the plane...

Normandy

Had a few days in Normandy with the family. I managed to get a few sketches done - I'm not overly excited by any of them - but I am starting to enjoy using a bit of colour. I'll stick with it and try a few more.

Here's a fort in the sea at St Malo...The beautiful castle at Fougeres. (I was very concious of Cathy waiting for me so the lines are a bit panicky)...
A very heavy handed and out of proportion drawing of one of the towers at Fougeres...
This last one was done with no one waiting - much more relaxed - even though I was standing up. It's a farm building opposite the one we stayed in...

Ducks

...and geese. I've got a little story idea which involves ducks or geese so I drew a few to see what I could do with the shapes - how they could be simplified and so on. I'm ashamed to say these aren't from life though.

Cowboys

Pale Rider was on last night - what a great film - and what a terrific character the Preacher is. These aren't necessarily pictures of the cast - just doodles of things I found interesting - moustaches and hats mainly.

Dammit I will post regular pictures!

I hereby do solemnly swear to do regular pictures and put them on this site. Honest.

Inspired by Crookies wondeful blog I've been trying to draw with a brush-pen. It's quite difficult - you have to stop yourself from doing too much. I'm still not happy with the shaky lines - I need to be bolder. Still, it's good to be drawing again.

The Hummingpecker

This was inspired by a discussion about working methods on Kevin Cornell's excellent site - Bearskinrug.co.uk

Woods

This is a bit of a cheat. It's a drawing I did a long time ago but found the other day. I'll do some new ones soon.

Derelict Building

This brick building is opposite where I work and has stood empty for a long time. I don't think it'll survive much longer.

I drew it from life but again used a photo for the initial colour reference in photoshop. Later I changed the colours a bit and finally I roughed it up in Painter.

Maybe one day I'll be able to paint this kind of thing without the photo for the colour reference. I'm always surprised what colour things are when you use the colour picker.

Clifton

The posh bit of Bristol. People pay huge amounts of money to live in these houses which don't conform to the laws of perspective. I drew it from life but used a photo for the colours. It's interesting also to see how accurate your drawing is when you overlay the photo (the curve of the crescent at the top is way off).

Crane

I went out at lunchtime to do a sketch. I drew for about 8-9 minutes before I got rained on so I came back in and coloured it in. I tried to do the value painting method (3 shades of grey first then add colour with a layer in 'color' mode) It sort of worked but only really started to look interesting when I added a photo of the cranes rusty texture I had snapped a few years back.

This Week

Here's a job that did happen. I did a series of vox pop animations leading up to the election. The interviews were with people in the street who weren't going to bother voting.

There wasn't a lot of time and they wanted about 2 minutes a week. There wasn't much money either - so I had to do it all myself. I'd get the sound and edit it down on on Monday morning, on Wednesday night it was on the TV and I'd have started the second minute for Fridays show! The only way I could do it was to keep the characters very simple - built out of a kit of parts that could be re-used again and again.

Phone

The first picture I've drawn from life in perhaps a year. I'm so ashamed. Still, it's a start. (The idea of flood filling parts of the sketch is shamelessly 'borrowed' from Stephane Kardos. His excellent sketches are here) Let's hope it's the start of some more 'proper' pictures.