It’s so hot today that I’ve gone into shorts for the first time so this is a good opportunity to switch from drawing hands to feet.
My feet aren’t as weather-beaten as my hands but when it comes to watercolour I still go mainly for yellow ochre and dashes of permanent rose with neutral tint, burnt sienna and raw umber in the shadows.
The drawing with my foot resting on the arm of the sofa gives more descriptive lighting than the one down on our grey sofa because there’s a secondary light from the patio windows filling in the shadow down the right side of my foot.
I’ll try and use secondary lighting to add a touch of drama to some of the frames in my Waterton comic strip. Waterton went barefoot when he climbing trees, so I’m going to have to include feet at some stage.
With so many hands to draw for my Waterton comic, I might as well get a bit of practice in while I wait at the hairdressers.
I like the flat colour and confident line used in many comic strips, for example in the Adventures of Tintin, but my wiry pen drawing is better suited to watercolour.
A flat flesh colour wouldn’t give a true impression of the back of my hand which has yellowish and reddish patches plus a variety of browns and warm greys in the shadows. It looks lived in. Using pen and watercolour runs the risk of overloading the comic strip with visual information but I think it’s worth trying to make it work. My section of the story is set in a wildlife sanctuary so watercolour going to work well for the colours and texture of the natural world. In his autobiography, Waterton describes himself as looking as if he has spent his life out of doors in all weathers, so he needs to look like a part of the natural world too.
Perhaps 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.
As an 9 or 10 year old I pinned a map of Africa on my bedroom wall, surrounded by a collection of the 3D models of African animal heads that they printed on the back of Corn Flake packets. I hoped that some day I’d be able to fly out to Tanganyika to visit my godparents, Barbara and Jack Wilkinson, though sadly that never happened. I’ve still got the five inch tall ebony warrior that they sent me. He still sports his feathery plume, hide shield and Masai regalia but he lost his spear long ago.
Jack taught biology at the agricultural college at Arusha, close to the Kenyan border. It’s a beautiful setting with Mount Meru and Kilimanjaro looming in the background. Returning to Britain when Tanzania won its independence, they settled in Leek, Staffordshire, where Jack continued to teach biology. He died of cancer about thirty years ago.
Barbara was doing fine when we visited her last summer before my mum’s fall but she too had a fall at new year. She died on the morning of my mum’s funeral. Like my mum she was in her 97th year.
We made our way, via the Peak District, to her funeral today. I’ll miss our occasional visits to Leek to meet up with her and go out for a lunch, which for me was always Staffordshire oatcakes (a kind of pancake), at the White Hart Tearooms.
Waiting in audiology gives me a few moments to make snapshot sketches of the medical staff and patients, trying to take in as much detail as I can as they pass then sketching from memory.
The man with broad shoulders in the black leather jacket was such a distinctive character but it wasn’t until he reappeared that I noted that he was wearing baggy black trousers, not matching leather trousers as I’d assumed. You can see my initial sketch was of close-fitting trousers.
The bowl of sugar lumps is from yesterday’s coffee break at the Brasserie in the Courtyard near Settle.
From the window that I’m looking through I get to see people pass by just for an instant but each individual seems so distinctive that I think ‘this time I’ve got it’ but then I start thinking was his hat blue or was that his sweat shirt? What was the grey lady wearing on her feet? Was the strider with the haversack wearing some kind of waistcoat or body warmer?
As I said the other day, the more I practice doing this, the better my memory should become not just for the telling details but also for overall shape and character of each figure.
Perhaps I should find a cafe table overlooking a precinct and have a coffee morning drawing the crowds.
I’m fascinated to go through the colour slides that I’ve gathered together from my mum’s. This photograph of my brother, my dad and Vache the springer spaniel was at the tail-end of an Agfacolour film, partly exposed to the light. I’ve had to do a bit of work in Photoshop to improve the exposure.
It reminds me so much of the knitting patterns of the period so I spoofed this up and e-mailed it to my sister. She writes;
‘Amazing picture!
I knitted those jumpers myself. Bill’s yellow polo neck was one I made to wear for riding lessons with Mr Dunn at Warmfield when I was 8. (Mum and Dad wouldn’t let me have a riding hat because it was too expensive and Health and Safety hadn’t been invented.)
The grey school jumper was from the same pattern but the V-neck version. In those days the yarn was pure wool without the advantage of added synthetic fibres and it looks as if both jumpers have felted and shrunk in the wash.
I think I still have the pattern.’
Even at that age my sister had a quirky sense of humour and I’m guessing that she must have taken this photograph and that she’d directed us to assume to poses of ‘knitting pattern boys’. Bill, who has always had theatrical leanings, is playing the part perfectly while I have been distracted, as I always am, by the nearest animal. My dad is probably wondering if Linda is operating his Akarette 35mm camera as she should.
‘Your imagination will never come up with anything more exciting than what’s in front of you.’
Lachlan Goudie
At last I’ve got on to my new sketchbook, the one that I’m going to use for trips around town. We’re heading for Leeds on the train so it’s ideal for trying out Una Stubbs’ approach to drawing surreptitiously in public places;
‘If I’m on a station platform and somebody walks past, I’ll try and remember what they look like and then, when I can, I sketch them. I love drawing old people. I’ve always loved old people and how one line can change a face.’
Una Stubbs
Una Stubbs is a presenter on The Big Painting Challenge, currently on BBC 1 on Sundays, and Lachlan Goudie, a painter, is one of the judges. I find the series quite inspiring and although it features non-professionals I find myself thinking why should they have all the fun?
I try memorising the people in the Costa Cafe at Wakefield Westgate. A list of details such as pin-striped grey suit, Hawaiian shirt and two-tone shoes isn’t enough in itself to conjure up the pose, body shape and character but, if I keep practicing, my visual memory for these subtler traits should improve.
This demonstration was about cuts in welfare benefits but my take on ‘Work isn’t working’ would be that if work always feels like a chore you should probably consider finding something else to do. Work takes up so much of your life.
The demonstrators were drawn from life from the vantage point of a department store window with a view up the Briggate pedestrian precinct. It was the first thing that I drew in the new sketchbook and I thought the slogan made a suitable aspiration; to be more relaxed and enjoy every drawing.
Buskers
There are two kinds of buskers in Leeds; the ones that can belt it out but look rather ordinary . . .
. . . and the ones who look striking but still need a bit of musical training.
On the train back to Wakefield I had a chance to draw a man at the far end of the carriage from life rather memory. I realise that drawing from life is what works best for me but I’ll still keep trying to draw from memory.
Alice was the last book that I discussed with my mum, Gladys Joan Bell, ten or eleven days ago when I visited her in the nursing home. She recalled how she used to call in after school for tea at her friend Betty’s and they’d sit at the kitchen table and start acting out the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, which they knew by heart;
‘No room! No room!’ ‘There’s plenty of room!’
Eighty years later that was as far as she could remember, so she asked me to look out her copy of Alice and bring it in to read to her. I’ve got her copy here on my desk, a 1954 first edition of the version illustrated by Mervyn Peake, but I regret that I didn’t get around to reading to her on my last couple of visits and sadly mum died a week ago today on the Tuesday morning, 10 February, (of ‘OLD AGE’ as Doctor Singh recorded it) slipping away peacefully, to use the cliche, but in this case it was true.
I’m of the generation who like to put the blame for their shortcomings onto their parents, as I guess most generations do, but you can see from my mum’s college project Oakleaves (above), which she compiled in the Spring of 1937, that she does have a lot to answer for; she’s the one who gave me my love of drawing, books and theatrical spectacle, not to mention a romantic view of history.
Don’t Fence Me In!
When she was in hospital in October, recovering from a broken hip and broken shoulder, my mum remembered cycling in the Peak District with my dad singing Don’t Fence Me In. But we’re going for These Foolish Things, one of the songs that she used to play on the piano, as her farewell at the funeral. That’s what I remember her playing but for lyrics I prefer the Gershwin song;
‘The memory of all that, You can’t take that away from me.’
In hospital, rehab and in the nursing home mum had many set backs but somehow kept pulling through. A week after her death, I’m missing her already. For instance, I’d always tell her about historical bits and pieces that I’d come across, like the medieval carved head at Blacker Hall Farm cafe that reminded me of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, which I wrote about the other day.
Oakleaves is a good example of how my mum undervalued her talents. It was her student project, at Ripon Teacher Training College, to design a pageant for the Coronation of George VI in the spring of 1937. As a child, I was fascinated by the beautifully produced, hand-lettered booklet of blank verse and costume designs that she’d put together.
Ten or twelve years ago Barbara and I had popped up to my mum’s for a Sunday morning coffee and I opened the kitchen swing bin to drop something in it and saw Oakleaves, ripped out of its loose leaf binding, lying on top of the discarded lettuce and tea leaves.
‘Why’s this in here?!’ I asked.
‘Oh, I thought nobody will be interested in that, so I threw it out.’
‘Well, I’m interested in it!’ I protested as I fished it out. With some difficulty (and a basic knowledge of history) I repaginated it and kept it in my family history drawer.
Last year I decided to go to the trouble of scanning the whole thing and I revamped it into Blurb hardback format and presented her with a copy on her 96th birthday. Even then, she hesitated to show it to her old teaching friend, Olive, thinking that might be a bit bigheaded.
I’m so glad that I went to all that trouble because, this year, on the day that would have been her 97th birthday, we will be attending her funeral.
Link
As a little memorial to my mum, I’ve now made the book is available from Blurb. They’re individually printed and I decided I wanted to try it in hardback with a dust jacket, so it’s rather expensive to produce, even for such a slim volume, but after the original’s near miss with the swing bin, I thought that only the best would do;
Oakleaves at Blurb. It should work out at £20 but Blurb seems to prefer to show the price in dollars or Euros, which makes it a little over thirty dollars.
At last I’ve found the best spot to sit and sketch at Kings Cross; one of the tables overlooking the concourse. The balcony has plate glass panels so you get an unrestricted view of the travellers below.
Despite the length of the concourse, I struggle to sketch people walking from one end to the other but soon little groups settle with their cases, giving me more of a chance. I like the way they arrange themselves, echoing each other in their poses, as well as in the way they dress.
The Olympics Effect
We’re so taken with how friendly and helpful people are in London. I’m sure it wasn’t like this in my student days! People go out of their way to help you, for instance the man on the information desk at St Pancras who walked with us the thirty yards to the machine to talk us through how to buy an Oyster card, which saves you 30 or 40 percent on tube travel.
Our friend Chris in Putney suggests that this is partly a result of the Olympics a couple of years ago, when residents got used to directing people around the city, acting as ambassadors.
London came in for a lot of criticism during the debate surrounding Scottish independence but, probably because the place did so much for me in my student days, I have enormous affection for its streets, parks, river and people. It’s good to have so many galleries, museums and historical sites – plus the zoo and Kew Gardens – concentrated into an easily accessed few square miles, rather than have them spread thinly across the country.
The city always gives me a buzz and inspiration, and a glow of nostalgia for my formative years but that’s not to say that it isn’t a relief when we get on the train, sink into our seats, buy a coffee and a packet of shortbread from the trolley and head back to the hills and small towns of Yorkshire!
It’s so hot today that I’ve gone into shorts for the first time so this is a good opportunity to switch from drawing hands to feet.
As I said the other day, the more I practice doing this, the better my memory should become not just for the telling details but also for overall shape and character of each figure.
At last I’ve got on to my new sketchbook, the one that I’m going to use for trips around town. We’re heading for Leeds on the train so it’s ideal for trying out Una Stubbs’ approach to drawing surreptitiously in public places;
I try memorising the people in the Costa Cafe at Wakefield Westgate. A list of details such as pin-striped grey suit, Hawaiian shirt and two-tone shoes isn’t enough in itself to conjure up the pose, body shape and character but, if I keep practicing, my visual memory for these subtler traits should improve.
