I’ve been looking at the photos I took yesterday up on the Black Mountain, selecting some for sketches. I’m using a white conte crayon, which is quite chunky, into a Daler Rowney ‘Ebony’ spiral bound A4 sketchbook. Here’s Husb and Number One Niece walking around the site of the old lime kilns and quarry. QuarryingContinue reading “The Old Quarry”
Tag Archives: conte crayon
Out Of The Gloom
I’m ploughing on with atmospheric sketches based on digital photos from the old church in Swansea that I visited a few weeks ago. I’m trying to keep it as minimal as possible, with more black than white, emphasising the chiaroscuro. I’m using conte crayon into an A4 ‘Ebony’ sketchbook by Daler Rowney. I took theContinue reading “Out Of The Gloom”
A Nook?
Is it a nook or a cranny? Here’s another very quick sketch based on some digital photos I took last week in an old church that is up for sale. It’s surprising how many nooks and crannies there are in old buildings. From the outside, it doesn’t look like it’s been extended but inside, thisContinue reading “A Nook?”
The Spiral Stair
Here’s another drawing from my visit to the old church yesterday. It’s one of those rambling churches in the Victorian tradition, although it was actually built around World War 1. The fabric of the building is pretty sound, but there is a some deterioration to parts of the interior. There is a consortium of differentContinue reading “The Spiral Stair”
The Dark Old Church
I went rummaging around in an old church earlier today. There were no working lights and the natural daylight was very dim because of the torrential rain outside, so it was dark and spooky. I did some sketching into my Daler Rowney Ebony sketchbook with white conte crayon and chalk. The church is no longerContinue reading “The Dark Old Church”
The Curate’s Egg
Tonight’s life drawing is like the Curate’s egg – good in parts. I had the most horrific foreshortening on the left hand. no matter how many times I measured it, the darn thing looked badly drawn. I used Winsor & Newton’s willow charcoal and white conte crayon onto a piece of Fabriano Accademica that IContinue reading “The Curate’s Egg”
Eyes Full Of Life
I’m really enjoying the 10 minute head sketches from photos I’ve been doing recently. As well as helping me to practice accurate speed sketching, my chosen subject, elderly women, is fascinating. I look forward each evening to exploring the heads I find on Google, they are so full of character and experience. This elder womanContinue reading “Eyes Full Of Life”
Emerging Patterns
I’m continuing to work with the paper I marbled earlier in the week, squinting and staring at the random shapes and letting them form into something that makes some sort of sense. I read recently that artists may see patterns in things more readily than other people. It didn’t take me long to see theContinue reading “Emerging Patterns”
Where It Starts
This is where it starts. With doodling and scribbling and sketchbooks. Just chilling out and playing with some materials, tonight some black conte crayon into my A5 hardbacked sketchbook. I’ve been doing a lot of work recently from drawings and photos I did at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial in the snow a couple of yearsContinue reading “Where It Starts”
More Process
I’ve been carrying on developing a suite of very small lino block portraits that I started a couple of blogs ago (in Process, Process, Process). I did some digital manipulation on Photoshop and got the image to the right size on my laptop and traced the image onto a good tracing parchment using a 3BContinue reading “More Process”
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