From Studland Bay

Poole

Even on an overcast day like today, you can see a lot from the beaches in Studland, Dorset.

The Isle of Wight

Old Harry Rocks and the eastern end of the Purbeck Ridge

English Civil War: First Battle of Newbury

The English Civil War Society reenacted the first Battle of Newbury on the battle site at Cope Hall Park last weekend. I was there on the Sunday, and made a few sketches with a fountain pen.

Pikemen

Parliament (Roundheads) cavalry

King's (Cavalier) Cavalry

Spectators!

Parliament cavalry and muskets

Showing off the artillery

We Are Forest sketchbook despatch #2: Beech

I find the roots, especially, of beech trees to be fascinating. The way they writhe and weave and make wonderful patterns on the surface... (this happens because beech has a shallow root system. It seems to help it to thrive on the steep slopes of our local downs, where there is a thin layer of soil over crumbly chalk bedrock, but it can make the trees vulnerable to high winds).

Beech is traditionally thought of as being feminine - perhaps it is the smooth bark and the elegant limbs - or the way that it can make so much (a grand tree, with useful wood) out of so little (the thin soil). Or perhaps it was just that the oak, "king" of the forest, needed a queen of a suitably stately nature.

We Are Forest is now complete (inclusive of beech) and currently on show at Sticks Contemporary in Gosport, Hampshire. It will cease to exist after the exhibition closes on 14 April.

detail from We Are Forest, a collaborative room-sized artwork by Artikinesis

We Are Forest sketchbook despatch #1: Silver birch

  

Bodown Woods, "Pierre noir" pencil

We Are Forest is an Artikinesis project. It's about trees. These sketches were all made "in the field", or, more accurately, in the woods...

Greenham Common, fountain pen

Silver birch is native to the UK. It is a fast-growing tree, often populating heathland and occasionally viewed as a "weed" species. It's an opportunistic tree. Its pale bark and distinctive dark banding make it easy to recognise. 

Ferry ports

 

Dover and Calais

Calais

Calais

Cornwall, August 2017

St Michael's Mount from the beach at Marazion

The beach at Marazion

From the beach at Durgan

Cover 2 Cover 2017 - sketchbook six - In the forest

Imaginary treescape, acrylic (knife painting)

Lone Hudson's In the forest theme was the last book I worked in. I do like trees, and I had been looking forward to this theme. The book was a smallish hardback guide to trees, with plentiful pages of nice quality paper. The text and line drawings made an interesting counterpoint to work placed directly on the page, and others in the group had made inventive use of the colour illustrations as well as doing some marvellous cut-work and additions, including manipulated leaves from trees.

Cover 2 Cover 2017 - sketchbook five - Shadows

This, selected for Charles Burns' Shadows theme, was a different class of book. It was a beautiful period hardback about photography, with elegant typography and full page monochrome photographs. It was also printed on nice paper - thick, matt and creamy in colour, it took every media we collectively threw at it - it had enough "tooth" for pencils and enough integrity for watercolour.

It was a book that demanded to be worked with rather than to be worked on, or against.

Shadows and reflections. Cello: woodblock, printed in the Japanese style, with fountainpen inks. Wineglass: Molotow One4All markers.

Cover 2 Cover 2017 - sketchbook four - Experimental paint and weathered effects

I found this book, initiated by Jane Skingley, rather daunting, and not just because of its size. I suppose I'm not really much of a mixed-media experimenter. My rather bland contributions were all added directly to the glossy pages and I didn't photograph them. I rather think that the array of textures in this book needs to be leafed through for maximun effect.

Cover 2 Cover 2017 - sketchbook three - The Unexpected

The next book was unexpected. No, it really was The Unexpected: Sue Crook's theme, for which she had been given, uexpectedly, an old Private Eye annual.

I went straight to the popular culture for my inspiration, starting with Roald Dahl's Tales of The Unexpected (a 1970s TV programme that was surely far too scary for me to have watched as a child, yet nonetheless, watch it I did, with my parents).

I discovered that Indian Ink sticks to glossy pages. Mysterious splodges of vaguely flame-like acrylic ink on top of it to indicate the flickering titles of the TV show...

Cover 2 Cover 2017 - sketchbook two - Love

Molotow One4All marker and fountain pen (yes, that fountain pen).

Love is Gail Davis' book. It was once a mass market paperback edition of "Out of Africa". I found myself reading bits of it; I must get a pristine copy sometime.

These photographs show only some of the changes that I made to the volume. After the constraints of Classical Mechanics, Love, with its hundreds of pages that accepted most media (sometimes very enthusiastically - some inks soaked through multiple pages, but that was done on purpose) was wonderfully freeing. As, indeed, it should be, given the subject.

Cover 2 Cover 2017 - sketchbook one - Classical Mechanics

These drawings are my contributions to "my" collaborative Cover to Cover 2017 sketchbook.

This year, each participating artist chose their own sketchbook theme, and second hand books that suited those themes were bought for adaptation by the group of six artists. My theme was Classical Mechanics. The book was (once) a Child's A-Z of Technology. It was an A4 paperback, roughly the size of a glossy magazine, with slightly more substantial (but no less glossy) pages. The paper proved difficult to work on, and I ended up gesso'ing several pages (sometimes leaving choice images or text).

Top: cover (old jeans, Molotow and One4All markers) and
title page ('found' image from the book, acrylic ink, fountain pen and bad joke)

Newbury Spring Festival 2017: Leo Popplewell, Cellist, lunchtime recital at the Corn Exchange

Last year, I participated in a collaboration between the Newbury Spring Festival and the local Open Studios in which artists were invited to sketch at performances and rehearsals. The results of last year's collaboration (which involved six artists in total) are on display at the Newbury Corn Exchange until 24 May.

I really enjoyed the sketching, and I found working from those sketches to produce finished artworks a very satisfying process. So I was delighted when I discovered that I would be able to do it again this year. I was only able to fit one sketching date in my schedule, and that date was today's lunchtime recital - a performance by the young cellist Leo Popplewell.

There were, by coincidence, a lot of cellos last year. I have come to like cellos; they have beautiful curves and make a wonderful array of very lovely sounds. Young Mr. Poplewell certainly teases out a fabulous noise from his instrument. He was accompanied by Mikey Pandya on piano for the first part of the show (when they performed Sibelius - Malinconia Op.20 and Fauré - Sonata No.2 in G Op.117), but played alone on stage for the second part (Britten - Cello Suite No.1 Op.72).

Taking the train

Moderately crowded trains can be good places to observe and sketch people. They tend to stay fairly still and they tend to keep themselves occupied, making it easy to make unobtrusive sketches.

I recently made a number of journeys to London, and these are some of my sketches made on one such (I have omitted the few that include potentially recognisable faces). It was a busy train; I stood all the way from Basingstoke (a little over an hour).

 

But my children were happy to sit on the floor.

Sherwood Forest and Rufford Abbey

The Major Oak

We visited Sherwood Forest during the summer holidays, but as I just finished an oil painting based on the Robin Hood legend, it seems like a good time to catch up on the quick sketches I made there and at Rufford Abbey.

The ruins of Rufford Abbey, set within the house's own park, are within the Sherwood Forest area, but is not part of the Sherwood Forest Country Park, although both are run by Nottinghamshire County Council. Rufford is famed in the world of folk song for a true poaching incident - which you'll find in my song drawing right at the very bottom of this post. If you want to listen to the song, I can recommend Jim Moray's version.

Sherwood Forest visitors

Rufford Abbey

Rufford Abbey

The Rufford Park Poachers: A song drawing

Paradise in a paper bag

Oil pastel on A3 mixed media paper (cropped)

My son picked these apples (variety: Paradise Citta) from our little tree. It's still laden down with fruit.

Cartoon Capers with Beenham Wind Orchestra

Last night, I had the great pleaure of attending a concert of cartoon-related music, given by the Beenham Wind Orchestra in the church of St. Mary's in Thatcham. The orchestra were not expecting to be sketched, but seemed quite pleased with it nonetheless.

Cornish beach scenes

I often end up on the beach in Cornwall in the off season, or when the weather is not so fantastic as it was last weekend.

So it was not surprising to find that Praa Sands was thronging with people. I made a number of sketches, and they were all about the people on the beach rather than the landscape or the sea.