A Corner of the Studio

studio

The utilitarian stationery cupboard is consigned to the corner but, as it’s on castors – and therefore not a stationary cupboard – it occasionally gets wheeled out. Card and paper gets converted into booklets when it goes through the Xerox laser printer before I collate, fold and trim on the worktop at the lighter end of the studio, near the large Velux roof-light window.

In contrast to this sleek operation, an old Ikea office chair, which sits next to the printer, looks worn and rather threadbare.

Equally forlorn, a four-octave USB keyboard hasn’t been used since I attempted to add a minute’s atmospheric background music to a short film that I’d made of our back garden on a frosty morning. It proved far more difficult than I’d imagined to come up with anything more than an aimless plinkity-plonk.

A much more successful purchase was the exercise step that sits on the floor next to it: I use that briefly almost every day in a five- or ten-minute exercise routine.

Nicola Coughlan

NIcola Coughlan

Nicola Coughlan, who describes herself as a ‘Small Irish Acting Person’, was today’s subject on the Portrait Artist of the Year live session on Sky Arts. There’s an option of using a still as reference or of joining in the full four-hour session, but I went just for the final hour and drew her as I might draw someone at a party, in a cafe or in the pub. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I can sit in a cafe again and sketch the world going by.

Alastair Faulkner

Today’s artist was Alastair Faulkner, who, when he’s not painting, works as a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon. He pointed out there were similarities in the two strands of his career but he can never step away from an operation that’s presenting challenges as he can from a painting.

I took the opportunity to draw presenters Kathleen Soriano, Kate Bryan and Tai-Shan Schierenberg.

sketchbook page

As always, struggled with Joan Bakewell (top left).

Links

Alastair Faulkner

Portrait Artist of the Year

Maris Peer

chitted potatoes

We left it too late to buy our Maris Peer second early potatoes last year, so we took no chances this year and got these on the back bedroom windowsill chitting two weeks ago.

Chinese brush chitting potatoes
Telephone Pen box

I found the Telephone Pen nib that I used scratchy and blotty, but that’s fine as I wanted an inky effect. Controlling my usual urge to add cross-hatching, I used a Chinese writing set to add the ink wash. The brush is made of goat’s tail hair.

It’s been a bad day for the local goats: they’re serving goat curry at the takeaway at the end of the road. It smelt delicious, but we haven’t been brave enough to try it yet.

The Waverley Pen

waverley pen box
'They come as a boon and a blessing to men,
The Pickwick, the Owl & the Waverley Pen'

I’ve been reading Joanna Carey’s survey of the work of Quentin Blake and when she mentioned that his favourite nib was the Waverley Pen, I remembered that I had a box squirrelled away in the attic.

writing box

Sure enough there was the Waverley Pen box, in grandad’s Victorian writing box but there were no nibs in it, just a couple of fossils and a few small spiral shells. We once recreated a Victorian naturalist’s study for a Wakefield Naturalists’ Society display at the Wakefield Flower Show, so I’d used the box as a period detail.

I guess that I removed the Waverley nibs at that time, so the only one that I can lay my hands on now is the one in the quill-like pen holder that we used in the exhibition.

Somewhere in an old film canister or matchbox, I guess that I still have a supply of Waverley’s. As you can see from my sketch, using a Waverley Pen doesn’t mean that you’re going to be able to draw like Sir Quentin, but it’s a pleasant pen to use and it produces a varied line.

Published
Categorized as Drawing

Boathouse Features

Boathouse features

Gothic architectural features of Newmillerdam Boathouse, which dates from the 1820s. I’d planned this as a small black and white diagram, but it works better larger and in colour. I’m still struggling with joined-up handwriting, some of these were ‘best out of three’, but I think that it’s worth the effort, as it gives a bit more animation to the captions.

Manic Moth

clothes moth

We all know that moths are the unsung nightshift of ecosystem services, busy pollinating and recycling while we sleep, so these days it’s not often that one of them, in this case the humble clothes moth, gets to play the pantomime villain.

Another illustration for the PG-rated children’s storybook Yes it is, or OH NO IT ISN’T! in this case. Manic Moth: “Oh! Yes it IS!!!!

I thought that I’d nailed it and created a moth that looked as scary as Nosferatu the Vampire but coming back to it he’s more closely related to Peter Firmin’s Nogbad the Bad. I think it’s to do with the way he walks, which would work well as a cut-out animation.

The Farmer and his Pig

farmer and pig

These two could have auditioned for the latest series of All Creatures Great and Small but they’re appearing in one of the folksy fables in Yes it is. I like the pig – just need him to tilt his head on one side as he listens to the tale – but for the farmer I need his expression to be flummoxed rather than irate.

ball and kite

Although Yes it is has a retro children’s story setting, it deals with themes that are all too contemporary, like the loneliness and isolation – in this case the loneliness of this green ball. The fact that the author has specified the colour makes me tempted to go for a spot colour, perhaps backed up with blocks of neutral grey, to hint at the style of children’s book illustration in the 1950s and early 60s; I’m thinking of Dr Suess and Gene Zion’s Harry the Dirty Dog, illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham.

ball and window

Margaret Bloy Graham uses a textured line which reminds me of conte crayon with a soft watercolour or gouache wash. With this in mind, I tried bamboo pen, to try and deliberately simplify the line (left) and dip pen (above) but inevitably, as I use it every day, I’m more relaxed drawing with a fountain pen, as in the farmer and his pig drawing, which was drawn in De Atramentis Document Ink with my Lamy Vista with an EF nib. That gives me more of the energy that I’m after, but without getting the particular vintage graphic look that I had in mind.

Sunny South Ossett

We’re set to have snow tomorrow, so I thought that I’d make the most of a sunny morning walk around Illingworth Park, Ossett, by taking Instagram-friendly square format colour photographs on my iPhone.

Yes it is

rough cover

Being an illustrator gives you a unique insight into the author’s mind. Scary stuff.

Published
Categorized as cartoon