Category Archives: Urban Sketching

Naples Feb 2019

I’ve just come back from a 2/3 day sketching trip to Naples. My mum’s friend visited Naples and described it as ‘a shit hole’. I can see her point. Naples is busy, polluted, dirty and smelly. Yet – there’s something incredible about it. It feels very foreign for a European city. It’s not particularly touristy.Continue reading “Naples Feb 2019”

People from the Window 3

I managed some more drawings from the window of my current fav cafe. This time mostly with biro… there are definitely some characters here. In the new year, I’m going to try to develop some of these using various (as yet undecided) printmaking techniques.

People from the Window 2

So I did some more sketching from my comfortable, safe window. With coffee (and maybe cake). I added a little colour here and there. I used Tombow bush pens again, which are fabulous (because not all brush pens are created equal), and pencil which (perhaps surprisingly) isn’t the quickest of drawing mediums. There are moreContinue reading “People from the Window 2”

People from the Window

As usual, it’s hard to find the time to draw. With kids, single-parenthood and a teaching job… but today I treated myself to a coffee in a large-windowed cafe with a view onto a popular street. People were walking up and down this little street, affording me a few seconds to try and capture them.Continue reading “People from the Window”

Buildings with Personality

Buildings have always been an anathema to me, well – unless I can draw them in a very scribbly, lazy sort of way (maybe looking back at the Rome sketchbook will show that perhaps I wasn’t ALWAYS afraid of tackling buildings). But to give them personality, play with the reality of them, treat them asContinue reading “Buildings with Personality”

The Decline of White Plastic Chairs

During my MA Conceived of a project I called the ‘White Plastic Chair Project‘. It was about drawing in the kind of places and spaces that you might find white plastic chairs. Interestingly they are rather more difficult to find these days. Most seem to have been replaced by aluminium chairs: much stronger, less mucky-lookingContinue reading “The Decline of White Plastic Chairs”

Gentleman on Train

I drew this on the crowded Braintree train, on my way home with my eldest son, on January 21. We’d spent the day mudlarking under the millennium bridge and lying on the floor under blankets at the Tate Modern. It was a good day.

Sketchbook: Summer People Sketches

So – a few sketches of people here and there from this summer. Some at Brighton Pride, some on a train journey through London and some on the beach at Mersea, Essex. I’d quite happily draw all year long, but mostly you have to talk to people – (of which, I’ve done a lot over summer). WhilstContinue reading “Sketchbook: Summer People Sketches”

Sketchbook: Waiting for the flight from Dubai

Above are the figures as drawn in my sketchbook. I have been meaning to try drawing people in a slightly exaggerated way, and an airport appears to be a good place to do this. It’s only a mild exaggeration, a gentle characterisation…although here some are more exaggerated than others. In the image above I’ve extracted theContinue reading “Sketchbook: Waiting for the flight from Dubai”