My Sketching Kit

I thought you might like to see what I used for today's sketch and the Fulham Palace sketch.

From left to right:

Pentel Clic Eraser

Rotring Art Pencil - 2mm 3B Faber Castell lead

Faber Castell 2mm lead sharpener

Pentel Waterbrush

Rembrandt waterclolours in a Winsor and Newton Bijou box

The paper can speak for itself

That should be the title of a book

A little voice in my head says that frequently when I see or hear certain groups of words. So many phrases sound like book titles.

I'm sure that making titles for books is a more arcane form of witchcraft than just thinking a bunch of words sound good or clever, but it's a little thing that keeps me amused.

Are you going to tell us the title of your latest bestseller Awa Rich?

Sketching with Olivia.

This week we went to Merton Abbey Mills as it's easy walking distance and midway between where we both live. It's the site of William Morris's Liberty Print Works. You may have seen Tony Robinson snorkelling in the Wandle  - is that another book title Awa Rich?  - when the Time Team excavated the area looking for any remains of the works, before the site was developed.

We found a shady bench opposite the water mill. Olivia did an A3 (A4 double page spread) in fineliner and watercolour. She was a bit doubtful whether she'd post it on her blog. I thought it was great, bold lines and colours compared with my rather ticklish pencil and wash.

Funny how we're far more critical of our own work than other's. We both sat there telling each other what was wrong with our own sketches whilst praising each other's.

The Water Mill as Merton Abbey Mills

Once again, I used A4 200 gsm cartridge paper, a 3B 2mm mechanical pencil, Rembrandt watercolours (cunningly disguised in a Winscale and Newtron Bijou Box) and a Pentel Waterbrush - though water and spillages were not a problem today.

I hope you didn't use any of those wicked cadmium pigments. T'would devastate the ecosystem Awa Rich.

Nope, just raw Sienna, burnt umber, Prussian blue and alizarin crimson.

Whoa! Now that's what I call a limited palette Awa Rich.

Well, limitations can make you more creative and a big box of colours can encourage you to make mud. I bought a book recently, called Journey - now that's a good title Awa Rich - by Aaron Becker. It's a wordless story about a bored and lonely young girl who draws a doorway into another world.

After looking at it for some time I reckon he used a similar palette, or at least, I could mix the colours in the book from just those four colours. The printers may have cranked up the saturation a bit and the girl's red crayon is probably cadmium red, but it's surprising what you can do with so few colours.

Tooting your own humility

Sometimes I forget about the Event Maelström and it reminds me of its existence in a very direct way. Today's reminder was a gentle nudge, rather than the usual catastrophic kick in the seat.

Olivia asked if I wanted to go out sketching this week and I replied, rather sarcastically:

"I can do any day except Wednesday when I'm teaching some marketing people how to do Excel spreadsheets - go on, admit it... you're jealous ;-)"

Not an hour later my partner Marie forwarded me this email:

Hi,

I hope all is well!! I just wanted to let you know I got a job that I am really thrilled with! I wondered if you could please thank Richard - I had to do a huge excel test for it and thanks to all his teaching I nailed it and scored top marks!!!

Please send my love to all and say I'll be sure to send a proper email soon!

Take care, lots of love Leyla xxx

The world is a strange and wonderful place. There's a gesture of obeisance I've seen in Japanese films where a warrior kneels before a superior ability, cups his fist in his hand and bows his head. I'm doing that now.

Sketching at Fulham Palace

On Friday (20th June) the illustration class from Putney School of Art and Design had a PlayAwayAwayDay at Fulham Palace. Bright Phoebus shone most glorious and a good time was had by all.

Find out about Fulham Palace

Fulham Palace is a haven of tranquility and contemplation in the midst of urban London. It's a great place to sketch as there are usually people around - on Friday there were a couple of school groups and a wedding - several interesting buildings and the recently renovated walled garden which is a lovely place to escape from the hullabaloo to read, sketch, eat your lunch or canoodle - as evinced by several couples who found the sunshine and seclusion highly conducive.

I stayed all day and did two sketches, one in the walled garden and one of the facade of the palace.

Ian drawing the greenhouses in the Knot Garden

 Ian is an architect who eschews 'puters and still draws the traditional way. He does fantastic pen and watercolour drawings. I did this sketch on A4 200 gsm cartridge paper with a 3B mechanical pencil and Derwent Studio coloured pencils.

A gaggle of school children in front of Fulham Palace

I did this sketch on A4 200 gsm cartridge paper with a 3B mechanical pencil and  Rembrandt watercolours using a Pentel waterbrush, which is great for sketching as you don't need a pot of water which can spill all over the parquet floor.

When you visit a museum and Uniformed Security Personnel (What's your USP Awa Rich?) search your bag. They're not looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction, they're after your watercolours, as Ian will relate.

I got the proportions a bit askew, the building is wider than it appears here. Another problem I always have with buildings is dividing up the space between the windows and doors. I think I can do it by eye rather than using a perspective division method, but as you can see - I can't.

Linda asked Ian how he gets his drawings to look so accurate, he just shrugged and replied "years and years of practice". The answer no one wants to hear but know deep in their hearts to be true.

Accept no substitutes eh Awa Rich?

True enough. Now go practice!

p.s. I can thoroughly recommend the coffee and the chocolate brownies in The Drawing Room cafe, I went back twice!

Sketching with Olivia by the Thames in Richmond

This morning I left the flat in the rain and cold - yes, the Summer Solstice is on Saturday - and caught the train to Richmond. A small group of us (current and former students of Putney School of Art and Design Children's Book Illustration class) get together to sketch the Out There now and again. Sometimes we head into the city, sometimes out.

Two of us couldn't come out to play today, so it was just me and Olivia. After walking upstream to that point where we might keep walking and not do any drawing, we decided to stop walking and sit.

The bench was quite wholesome, not too much moss, lichen, bird poop, ice cream or other unidentifiable unsavouriness. The view was reasonable - river, trees, buildings, boats, people. We sketched for a couple of hours and the sun came out. A pleasant way to spend a morning, drawing what's in front of you and talking of, well you know, those brassicas and monarchs again.

I'm still enjoying using my antique Derwent Studio coloured pencils. Olivia went for pen and watercolour.

Go to Olivia's blog to see her sketch.

Olivia's pen and watercolour sketch of Richmond Bridge

On the Thames at Richmond - click for bigness

It's Full of Cats!

Ten thousand years from now - when we've all gone to our accounts impenitent - and Tony Robinson is digging up the internet only to discover it's made entirely from cats - I want the Akashic record to show that I made a small but significant contribution.

The cup of my drafts folder runneth over with incompleteness so here's a bit of silliness to tide you over until the next post.

Oh the bugles played the next post in chorus, and the pipes played the flowers of the forest.

Mr. Foo is my downstairs neighbour's cat. I don't want to know that he's really called Keith or Fankle J. Roosevelt. He sits on the window sill surveying his domain, looking like an old Mandarin.

I didn't utter a word Awa Rich.

I drew him with Derwent Coloursoft pencils.

Fairy Thoughts

The week of the second May public holiday (formally known as Whitsun) was a washout - as I mentioned in my last post.

A time for reading, writing, drawing and conversation. Even the residents at the bottom of the garden were taking shelter wherever they could.

I was checking in on Olivia's blog to see what she'd been up to lately. There was a delightful watercolour of a thoughtful fairy, which inspired me to draw a fairy.

OliviaArtbox

I always take a bag full of art materials on these sojourns and spread them out all over the dining table when we arrive. I'm usually disappointed by the amount of creation I've completed by the end of the week. This time I just took a large and a small sketchbook and my ancient Derwent Studio coloured pencils.

It's been ages since I last used coloured pencils but I really enjoyed pfaffing around with them. Layering the colours and creating different textures. You can exercise a lot of control with pencils. Anything from soft and delicate grainy hints to deep saturated glossy colour. It's amazing how limitations and restrictions can increase your creativity.

It was the first drawing of the week and it was a bit weak.

Let Olivia do Olivia picters and Awa Rich do Awa Rich picters Awa Rich!

Agreed, but it got my hand movong and I made marks on paper. I could see there was potential, not just in the texture of the pencil marks but the subject too. Vegetation, Fungi and anything sheltering beneath, raindrops (on noses and whispering kittens, snowcakes in freezers and fingers being bitten... Sorry, couldn't resist that Awa Rich).

Very droll.

The warm humid weather of the previous week had brought forth a profusion of small mushrooms in the grass. Nothing of any culinary interest but excellent places for wee folk to seek respite from the precipitation.

If you think that this critter bears more than a passing resemblance to the blue folk in James Cameron's Avatar, I would point you in the direction of Brian Froud and Alan Lee's book of fairies where you will find several similar looking beings. This book predates Avatar by about 35 years.

If you're too clumsy in your approach to a faerie, it will turn sideways to the sun in an instant, leaving a vestige of its presence, for a few seconds, lingering in the space it occupied.

Very poetic Awa Rich. You just didn't finish it, that's all!

True, but I really enjoyed doing that background. Building up layers of colours, feathering the edges of the tree trunks to make them look out of focus, creating the filigree network of fine branches in the undergrowth.

I am liking these pencils and playing with them has given me some clues for using watercolours better.