New paintings and regular art updates.
Three 1 inch sketches for the challenge for urban sketchers Stoke on Trent. One was in the cafe at a local supermarket and the other two were drawn tonight at the pub. The dog would not stay still so I only had a few seconds to look at it. The violinist was playing and again I had to do a very quick sketch.
I enjoy drawing and it’s good to challenge yourself with something new.
More to follow over the month.
You may or may not have heard of Inktober also known as #inktober or #inktober2018 its something that comes up at this time of year where artisrs are encouraged to draw something in ink for each day of the month. The drawings are shared on instagram under these two hashtags. Oh and I forgot each day has a theme I think. There was a list last year but I haven’t seen it yet.
At the same time the urban sketchers I am a member if have set a 1 inch drawing challenge for the month. Each of us is trying to do a drawing in a 1 inch square for the month of October, so I’m trying to amalgamate the two and kill two birds with one stone as the old saying goes.
Whether I will fulfill the challenge depends on how busy I get, whether I remember to draw and if I remember to post. I think I might report back here once a week. If course I could draw everything and just post one drawing a day, but I like the spontaneity of the idea , so I will try and draw in the moment.
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More sketches. These are of the restaurant by the river in Otley (finished), a pine tree outside the wizard tea room at Alderley Edge on the way home where we stopped for lunch. A woman and her dog sitting outside at a picnic table at the wizard tea room.
We travelled about 140 miles on that day so I was desperate fit a sit down and it was good to sketch while we were waiting for our food. A similar thing happened at the restaurant. We had a bit of a wait so I sketched the view but the food arrived before I could finish it so I added a few details when we were on the way home.
Someone just asked me about urban sketching so I looked some information up from the urban sketchers page on Facebook. The following text is copied from their page so apologies to them in advance if this is not acceptable. Urban sketchers are a world wide group. This is what they say (edited) :
Dear fellow Urban Sketchers,
This post serves as a reminder that images you post to the Urban Sketchers Facebook group must follow the Urban Sketchers Manifesto.
Your post will be removed if we find your sketches & content not in line with the manifesto.
URBAN SKETCHERS MANIFESTO
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• We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation.
• Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel.
• Our drawings are a record of time and place.
• We are truthful to the scenes we witness.
• We use any kind of media and cherish our individual styles.
• We support each other and draw together.
• We share our drawings online.
• We show the world, one drawing at a time.
GUIDELINES
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Before sharing your drawings in the group, make sure they meet these basic criteria and they are done in the spirit of the Urban Sketchers Manifesto.
• You did the drawing on location, not from photos, memory, or your imagination.
• You have written the location of the sketch (town and state/country) in the headline or caption.
• We encourage members to write descriptions and stories associated with each sketch.
• We post our OWN work, not that of someone else. Please don’t share other people’s work here.
• Your post must be public, not private. If you post a private picture it will be deleted because the group can’t see it – all we get is an “Attachment unavailable” notice.
• No sketches from figure drawing sessions or posed models.
As long as your art conforms to the above, the medium used is not an issue, be it anything from a pencil to an electronic tablet.
DRAWING PEOPLE
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Draw VERBS, not NOUNS (Thank you, Walt Stanchfield!)
That means draw people doing stuff in context and not just noses, faces, hands and feet. Please avoid people that are posed or without an urban context. Posed people includes self-portraits, too.
Giving an environmental cue to a portrait is very helpful. Drawing the ENTIRE person is even more helpful.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
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Anyone is welcome to join, but please DO NOT ADD SOMEONE ELSE! These requests will not be approved. This group is huge enough without adding people who don’t necessarily want to be here. It’s a public group so they don’t need to be members to see the art in it.
Below is a quote from it, and note that he includes rural:
“The way I see it and try to convey in The Art of Urban Sketching book, being an urban sketcher isn’t merely about drawing cities, big or small, urban or rural, with a pen or with your fingers on an digital tablet.
“It’s about drawing places that can be put on a map, and everything that happens in those places. It’s about showing the world with drawings, taking people to locations they may never go through artwork you can only create.
“You were there, you saw it, you sketched it, you told us what happened with your hand drawn art, sketched in the moment but perhaps touched up later because you ran out of time or can’t resist the urge to fix something up.”
I’m in a group called urban sketchers. Today we braved the wind and cold and went out to draw and sketch there. I got quite chilly and damp but it was worth it. There were about 8 or 9 of us there.
There is so much to see at the Gladstone Pottery museum. Plus there is a nice little shop with Pottery for sale and a good friendly cafe upstairs.
Sited in Longton, Stoke on Trent, the Gladstone Pottery museum shows you the history of ceramics. There is a flushed with success section about toilets and a display of ceramic flower making, pot throwing, an old engine house, a doctors house and surgery. A selection of historical tiles and much more.
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I found a sketching app on the new phone. The result is a lot smoother and neater than my tablet computer. I think it’s because I have a protective layer on the screen so my fingers don’t drag and judder. I may try and get the same for the tablet. Also the touch sensitive screen seems more sensitive. It’s easy to be seduced by new technology. The more helpful it is to you the more you want to use it? No doubt I will end up with a neck that is permanently bent downwards towards a screen….
I am lost! Note, the picture I’ve added is not the sketch because I can’t find it on the phone…. Nothing changes, technology eh.
Ah… Found it! Learning…!
Today I had a break from my exhibition for an hour, so I went and sketched a few of the classic cars. I have to say there were a lot of Austin and Morris cars, plus things like the Scimitar car that I drew.
Each sketch took between 10 and 15 minutes. I tried to be accurate, but when you are standing in a field with cars or engines, people have a tendancy to walk in front of you or stand in the way.
Drawing is slow motion photography I guess you could say, you click a camera, but your hand and eyes have the effort of coordinating to get an image. It’s not easy to draw a new subject. Wheels can be too big or small. A bumper might be too high up, and cut across where the radiator grill should go. Also when you use a thin nibbed pen you have the difficulty of getting dark areas without wanting to spend ages cross hatching.
Movement is another problem, while drawing the diesel engine I tried to get a feeling if the spinning motion, but it started to get messy. There are so many pipes and wheels and tubes. I have no idea what bit does which action, its hard to link things up in your head.
Anyway I took photos of the cars for comparison, I may paint some of them.
Late last night I stared to write a little story about this woman I had drawn, it was called Charlis and it was about her rescuing her village from a flood using powers that she did not realise she had. It was not meant to be a superhero / comic type story, I was hoping it would be deeper than that.
I had got about half way through (it was only short) and was concentrating on the plot when my tablet ran out of battery power and closed on me. This morning the story has gone.
I find it difficult to write stories, to put myself in other people’s lives. Doing something like this is quite daunting, would it be too verbose? too convoluted? did it make sense, could I take people with me into the story?
I can’t remember half of what I had written, and I don’t want to inflict something on you that might not be any good.
So what should I do, recreate it, is it worth the hassle? I tend to write things spontaneously, without any planning. Late night writing when you are tired is not the best way of going about things. I don’t think I’m much of a writer, I don’t feel my words flow, I am just learning. At least I have age and some experience to fall back on.
I will ponder on this. …
We visited Middleport pottery in Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent today to see “weeping window” a memorial made of 11,000 ceramic poppies placed on a bottle oven in the pottery. The poppies are some of the ones that were on display previously at the Tower of London and have been travelling around the country for the last couple of years. You are supposed to book a visit but as the number of people going to see the display has reduced we were allowed in without booking. We had to park on a designated car park as the local streets have parking restrictions at the moment and you could get fined.
The poppies commemorate the worth anniversary of the 1st world war,”the war to end all wars” which sadly did not stop humans fighting over and over again as they have since our ancestors first fought many thousands of years ago. Many if the poppies were made in Stoke-on-Trent so its good to see them come home although there was a fight to get them.
The display of poppies cascade down the oven, spreading out on the ground, representing blood and the fallen soldiers that were killed in the war.
I drew the scene but had to slightly shorten the bottle kiln to fit it on the page. I also struggled to represent so many poppies. We then visited the rest of the pottery, including the steam engine although it was not working today. There was quite a crowd so I only sketched it briefly.
On our return to the car park there was a large poster with the poem by John McCrae written in 1915. I decided to draw my own version of a poppy to go along with it.
Middleport pottery is very interesting, there is a museum on site, plus artists and ceramicists with their own studios. The tea shop was very busy but we managed to get a table. There was also a display by students from clay college who are doing a two year full time course to learn the skills of pottery making before they are forgotten.
Although the weeping window display ends in mid September the pottery is well worth a visit. It’s surprising how much goes on round here!
Taking a selfie is bad enough, but trying to draw yourself from it while trying to hold a sketchpad and a tablet computer in one hand and an old felt pen in the other is quite difficult. I did try and use pointillism to do the shading but I think it didn’t really work well. Somehow the eyes in the drawing are looking at me, when in the photo they look up and to the right. The other thing with selfies is you see yourself the right way round, where when you look in a mirror everything is back to front, in mirror image.
I had been trying to take a photo of my reflection in a mirror but the tablet keep getting in the way. The only decent way to take it was by holding the computer tablet to one side but I ended up with the toilet in the background because my decent sized mirror is in the bathroom!
Anyway I don’t generally do selfies and its been a few years since I did a self portrait, but this was a bit of an experiment. I like painting people and drawing them. Soon the life drawing class I go to will be starting up again. Then I can get in some proper practice.
Till then I’m going to try and do a few more quick portraits, this took about 15 minutes.
Mallaband-Brown