The Duke’s Legs Akimbo in Brighton

  Taking a break for a few days in Brighton, we went to see The Guard, hilariously funny film, at The Duke of York’s Picturehouse. It’s an independent cinema built in 1910 in a rather over-the-top Victorian style; one of those buildings that looks like a wedding cake, all white and stuccoed and covered withContinue reading “The Duke’s Legs Akimbo in Brighton”

Hot Rods, Velocettes and The Yellow Submarine.

  We’re having a few days away on the English South coast in a very typical small seaside town with some friends and this very sunny morning we wandered down to a field by the seafront to a festival of vintage and custom motorbikes and cars, with leather-clad bikers, heavy rock bands and ………. theContinue reading “Hot Rods, Velocettes and The Yellow Submarine.”

Ink Sketching: Letting Sleeping Cats Lie.

Cats are not easy to draw but at least they spend long hours completely immobile – fast asleep. I take advantage and get some sketching done. It’s doubly hard with Sparta because she also has very distinctive markings so drawings have to be accurate or they don’t look like her. This is a page inContinue reading “Ink Sketching: Letting Sleeping Cats Lie.”

Man and Boy on a Seashore Safari; Big Bikes at the Ice Cream Parlour

I carry a small sketchbook and a pack of four Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, sizes S, F, M and B in black and I’m always scribbling. The most difficult is drawing on the move, trying to capture spontaneous moments of life in a few seconds. This fleeting sketch was done two summers ago whenContinue reading “Man and Boy on a Seashore Safari; Big Bikes at the Ice Cream Parlour”

Chelsea’s Chocolate Cake and Jet Lag in the USA

  I love to make cakes; it’s one of the ways I relax. I don’t particularly like eating cake but I love to feed it to other people. Lots of people ask me to make cakes for them and it’s great to go off into the kitchen and concentrate for an hour or so, breathingContinue reading “Chelsea’s Chocolate Cake and Jet Lag in the USA”

All Scribbled Out

I’ve been drawing for most of the day and also went to my regular weekly Thursday evening life-drawing group so I’ve been drawing for around 12 hours and I’m scribbled out, so I’m not going to say much tonight, but I’ll leave you with some sketches. Good night 🙂   Two gentlemen debating at SwanseaContinue reading “All Scribbled Out”

Man / Superman at The Met, NYC

  On one of my visits to New York City I spent a happy couple of days at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s a fantastic place and even after two days I hadn’t seen everything. I took my sketchbook, as ever, and did this ink drawing of a small group of children taking partContinue reading “Man / Superman at The Met, NYC”

Cats in My Sketchbook

  I think that cats are good for drawing practice as they’re surprisingly difficult to draw. I’m so used to using the human body as a subject that cats are a completely alien lifeform when it comes to scribbling; not only do they have different skeletons which work in strange ways, like knees that bendContinue reading “Cats in My Sketchbook”

A Gothic Mansion at the end of a classic train journey in West Wales

  Now and again we go away for one or two nights to a really nice Welsh hotel to recharge our batteries. Penally Abbey is one we’ve returned to; it’s one of those gothic nineteenth century mansions full of antique furniture, soft beds and lovely food. Because it’s reasonably close, we don’t have to faffContinue reading “A Gothic Mansion at the end of a classic train journey in West Wales”

A Link to The Beatles, Scribbling Faces and The Arandora Star

I carry my sketchbook all the time and take every chance I can to have a scribble. One night some friends invited us to a fundraising evening for the Arandora Star memorial. It was a great opportunity for sketching faces and I did some drawings there. The guest speaker was the veteran actor Victor SpinettiContinue reading “A Link to The Beatles, Scribbling Faces and The Arandora Star”