Day: July 24, 2020

Back to Backs

sketches
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market folk

This feels like getting back to some kind of normality: sitting with a latte at a table outside Bistro 42 overlooking Ossett’s Friday market and watching the world go by. I want to just draw what is in front of me rather than, as I often do, taking a mental snapshot of a passing figure, so I draw people who look as if they might stay in position for a few minutes. The men waiting on the bench are the most obliging. I find back views expressive. Rather than slapping a facial expression on a character, you can leave the viewer to work out for themselves whether a character is feeling relaxed or slightly; tense, bored or curious.

Grappling the Graphite

grappling the graphite

Take a break, keep fit, Mattias Adolfsson advises us on his Art of Sketching course . . . and draw some exercises suitable for illustrators.

soft lead

It’s a while since I’ve tackled graphite and certainly I’m not ready for H pencils yet.

HB pencil

I can just about manage HB.

nib muscles

The problem is that I’ve spent too long working with pens.

pencil pusher

I was never cut out to be a pencil pusher.

pencil sharpening

I remember the rare pleasure of being appointed pencil monitor at school. With all thirty of the class’s pencils to sharpen there was a tendency for us to push the machine to its limits and turn too fast, result: broken leads. This meant you had to start over and the pencils rapidly decreased in size.

pumping ink

I’m better sticking to what I’m used to, but I’m drawing so much that I’m regularly having to top up my Lamy Vista with De Atramentis ink. Quite a workout and I have to mop up the mess with paper napkin afterwards. Perhaps I should go back to cartridges, you just pop them in and you’re ready to go.