Month: March 2021

Four Shades of Grey

John Welding

My illustrator friend John Welding – who, thanks to lockdown, we’ve spotted in passing on his bike just once in the past year – posted some beautifully shot ‘drapery’ studies of himself which he’d taken as reference for an illustration project (loan of flat cap by Steve Hopewell).

I needed a tonal subject to test out my ink washes on, so this was ideal, so many thanks to John.

I started drawing from his photograph with a dip pen with a Waverley nib, using De Atramentis Document Ink.

Pen and Wash

I’ve revived an ink wash system that I used on location in the Peak District when I worked on my black and white published sketchbook High Peak Drifter. The washes from then had dried up long ago, so I cleaned out the jars (they’re plastic sample jars from a pharmacy) and remixed the four greys. Since testing them out in these swashes, I’ve made the ‘Pale’ and ‘Med. Pale’ a bit lighter and the ‘Dark’ a bit darker. As with the drawing, I used De Atramentis Ink.

Garage

garage

We’re rather unusual on our street in keeping a car in our garage but, like most of our neighbours, we use it as a store and work space. My 1976 Astro Daimler bicycle leans against the back wall but it hasn’t been used for years and when I last used it occasionally, it was to take parcels to the post office, rather than to get out touring the landscape, which was its original intended purpose.

boots

Our favourite way to get out in nature these days is to put on our hiking boots. They’re sitting on a unit saved from our old kitchen, which has proved to be a useful work bench.

Still hanging on the shelf unit, a string of large Stuggart Giant onions. We had a bumper crop of them last year, but because of cold, damp weather when we harvested them, they didn’t keep and soon turned bad.