Another lovely day so we headed East over the border into England to visit friends and stopped awhile in Bradford-on-Avon, a bit beyond Bath. We’d often driven through and wanted to stop, because it’s ridiculously picturesque, so today we finally took a walk around. It’s very old and the buildings cling to the steep sides of the river valley, some of them going back to the seventeenth century. We had a traditional Sunday roast in a local pub and while we waited I sketched through the ancient window. It took about ten minutes using Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, sizes M and B, onto a piece of mountboard, prepared with a white gesso ground with a random ink wash sponged over. Then a few white highlights added with conte crayon.
Love the textures, they add to the sense of history in these buildings. Such a good idea to prepare random surfaces!
Thanks. I like working on scruffed-up surfaces. I hate the tyrrany of white.
Thanks for reminding me about Bradford-upon-Avon… ages since I’ve been there. I’m hopeless at drawing so I’ll take some photos instead – love your sketch, as usual!
Thanks. It’s such a lovely place 🙂
Really like this drawing. Looks great!
Thank you – have pens, will scribble 🙂
I love Pitt Artist Pens (I have about 15 of them in various colours and thicknesses) and I love your drawing but what I really want to know is how big is your handbag? I thought mine was big to fit my huge sketchbook/pen collection but if you are carrying around bits of gessoed board “just in case” your bag must be enormous! 🙂
haha I have an ‘artist’s bag’ that I found in a cut-price book and arts shop, The Works a couple of years ago. It has different compartments and can carry paper and boards up to A2 size, along with a nice tube for rolled-up paper. Otherwise I carry an A5 sketchbook in my handbag.