Category: Art

Customers in Costa

customers in CostaPerhaps because I’ve been rattling off so many storyboard frames for my comic strip project, I felt relaxed when I took the opportunity to draw the customers during our coffee break this morning. Perhaps the prospect of a large latte was helping me get in a suitably laid back mood too.

I like the way my new fountain pen glides about on the paper, perhaps a bit out of control but that’s something that it can be good to go along with. In fact I’m getting so mellow that I even quite like the wax-resist effect of the paper in my Moleskine sketchbook, an effect probably accentuated by my hand resting on the paper as I draw.

Sketches of a Sheltie

simbasimbaSimba is a dog, a sheltie, who needs constant reassurance but that’s not surprising as he has to share his home territory with two year-old Alex, who celebrates his birthday today.

I’ve drawn Simba in my pocket-sized Moleskine, using my new Lamy Safari with the extra fine nib.

simba

Cameras

cameras

bags
Camera bag, A5 and 11 x 9 inch art bags.

I upload photographs from my little Olympus Tough or the FujiFilm FinePix bridge camera every couple of days. When they’re not on my desk connected with USB cables to the computer they’re in one of the bags hanging behind me.

Bark to the Drawing Board

roughsbuttonI’ve been tweaking the badge featuring Tilly, the bookshop Welsh collie. As I’m used to drawing her looking down on her, I’d missed the detail that she has a black beard and ginger throat. It makes a surprising difference to her character.

No room for a book, so we’ve given her a pair of reading glasses.

Link; the Rickaro Bookshop on High Street Horbury, home of Tilly’s Young Readers’ Club which is soon to be launched.

Published
Categorized as cartoon

End of the Shelf

golden hornet
Golden hornet crab apple in blossom.

shelf endRain on the studio window blurs my view of the garden, meadow and wood so I turned the other way and drew the end of the shelf.

Lamy Safari with a medium nib with an ink cartridge, which unlike the Noodler’s isn’t waterproof, so I haven’t added any watercolour.

Pitch Perfect

tent and pondThe wild is calling me and I’m back in my tent for the first time in two years.

tent flap
That rusty metal pole isn’t part of the tent; it the clothes post.

crab apple blossomAdmittedly I’ve only gone as far as our back lawn and pitched it overlooking the pond. The weather is fine and I don’t really need this little pop-up igloo of a tent but I need to practice putting it up and – the trickier part – folding it up and getting it back in its dustbin-lid sized bag

kingcupsWhen I first bought it, I was glad of it when drawing rocks on the beach at Whitby. It rained quite heavily but I was able to finish my drawing from the shelter of the tent however I could not work out how to roll/fold it up again.

cuckoo flowerThe life-guards of West Cliff, a helpful family by the Whalebone Arch, even a tattooed man who looked as if he’d be an expert at striking camp after a music festival were unable to help me and we drove home with the half-folded tent, like a restless Chinese New Year dragon, springing about in the boot.

This afternoon, for the first time ever, I folded it up in one go. The secret is not to try and understand how it folds up – that’s multi-dimensional thinking that would baffle Stephen Hawkings – you’ve just got to start rolling the naan bread-shaped collapsed tent from bottom to top and you’ll find yourself flanked by two small bicycle wheel-sized butterfly wings which you concertina into the bag, being careful to tuck in any overlapping canvas between the hoops so you don’t catch it in the zip fastening of the bag.

I look forward to using it again as I’m convinced that after six or seven years I’ve finally got the hang of it.

Circles within Circles

Lunch time sketch (actual size two inches across) at the Seed Room, Overton; pan-fried hake, beetroot, mouli, radish with watercress in yogurt dressing.
Lunch time sketch (actual size two inches across) at the Seed Room, Overton; pan-fried hake, beetroot, mouli, radish with watercress in yogurt dressing.

tilly button

What should be something that I can do in minutes takes an hour or two of head-scratching. I’m trying to put circles within circles to create a badge (or button as the American’s would call it). So simple but there are three programs that I could use to do it and several alternative methods within those programs.

When even Google and You Tube can’t give you the specific information you’re after, there’s only one thing to do; phone a friend. In this case John Welding, comic artist and veteran Photoshopper is the man to call. In half an hour of patient explanation he gets me on the right track.

Squirrel

squirrel 1986squirrel 1986A grey squirrel approaches the bird feeders but I rattle open the patio doors and send him away. The problem is that our bird feeders aren’t squirrel-proof and we’ve had the plastic perches and seed-hoppers nibbled away in the past. Time to grease the pole, I’m afraid. I don’t like doing it but I’ve yet to come up with a better solution.

The leaping squirrel is another rough from my children’s picture book Deep in the Wood. I was trying to see the world from a squirrel’s point of view. What would it be like to be up there leaping with the squirrel?

You can see where I’ve had to adjust the head, sticking on a new version. The darker lines on both these drawings show where they were traced down onto watercolour paper for the final artwork. The squirrel with the nut was an early version of the cover. We didn’t use it because it looked as if the book was just about squirrels. A new version of the cover featured all the animals that appear in the book.

Walton Hall

Photograph by John Welding
Photograph by John Welding

Walton HallI was beginning to think that I’d been a bit indulgent, suggesting that our next meeting to discuss the Waterton Comic should be at Walton Hall, home of Charles Waterton, but, when I drove over the bridge and through the old park gateway, as the panorama of lake, hall and copses opened up, I realised that this was going to be more inspiring than a conference room at Wakefield One.

It’s only today that I received my new drawing pen, a Lamy Safari with an extra fine nib, but already I feel that it’s going to be my favourite. John Welding, who is illustrating the opening segment of the Waterton Comic, photographed me starting my first sketch with the new pen, appropriately of the place where I first opened my eyes; Walton Hall was an annexe of Manygates maternity hospital in the baby boom years. No wonder I feel so attached to the place.

Tilly 29/04/15chimney detailAs I call to pick up Barbara from the Rickaro bookshop in Horbury (for the last time as she retires today!), I try out the pen again by drawing Tilly the bookshop’s Welsh collie and a couple of architectural details across the road.

I ordered pen with a filler so that I could use Noodler’s ink in it and I’m pleased that it proves waterproof when I add the watercolour wash to my sketch.

Link; John Welding, illustrator (and talented photographer!)