Some Larger Sketches

The vast majority of my sketching is done on a A5 sketch pad. This is held within a little leather folder, a souvenir of a work conference two career moves ago from the mid 1990s.

This goes abroad with me, it goes on cruises, it goes on trips around the UK. It's been up ancient Iron Age hillforts and it's seen some of the most awesome sights in Europe and even outside Europe. It holds not only the pad, but my old trusty propelling pencil which I use for 99% of my drawings, a few old sketches on the left that haven't yet found a home or been filed, a few cards for the band (Creeping Bentgrass, very reasonable rates and a good time to be had by all), and a few ephemera souvenirs - a Piraeus bus tour leaflet and a card from a restaurant in Positano plus some ferry tickets from Lake Garda, currently in there. Just occasionally I try something on a larger bit of paper. And that's what this article is all about.

In 1991 we had been camping in North Devon and whilst I sketched a few bits down there, I brought some postcards back with me also and sketched a couple of A4 drawings of Clovelly from them.

These are both of the same scene, but one from the top of the hill and one from lower down, looking up. This was quite early on in my sketching, so any trace of humans or animals was wiped out. This is Clovelly as seen on a winter's morning around 4:00am!

Bolton Abbey is a romantic ruin on the side of the River Wharf in Yorkshire. This was drawn from a photograph I took in the 1980s. By the time I drew it, that youngster being helped over the stepping stones would have been in her late teens or twenties! Drawn on an A3 sheet, this hangs on my living room wall, flanked on either side by the Clovelly drawings.

Also drawn on A3, this started out well, but any train enthusiast will soon spot the faults with it. No engine has a boiler plonked on a box on top of the - what the heck is that called - the foot platform thingy! Ok, credibility doubly shot down now. Sorry to all the railway buffs... I'll leave the topic alone in future I promise...

So we'll finish with this one, which is a really rare thing for me. Colour and A4 size. The subject is an eagle that I saw on a much better work of art. I just took one close up detail and let fly with coloured pencils. I used almost every one on the eye alone, but it paid off I think. It's the rest of it that's rubbish lol.

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