Portsmouth: All Along the Waterfront

Molotow hybrid acrylic pens

Actually, we didn't cover anything like the whole waterfront (just the bit between Gunwharf Quays and Southsea), but the conflation of those two song titles (Bob Dylan via Jimi Hendrix, "All Along the Watchtower"  and Simple Minds, "Waterfront") has got stuck in my mind.

Southsea Pier

Mixed media: watercolour; Conté "Pierre Noire" and other sketching pencils; white Uniball

Yesterday, Rose and I were in Portsmouth again. The "Great Waterfront City" has a lot of very interesting things to see and, indeed. sketch.

Naturally, we gravitated to the waterfront itself and made our way up to Southsea, where we stopped to sketch the pier. Somehow, the slightly neglected-looking end of the edifice was the most intriguing part...

soft chalky pastels with charoal on turquoise paper

See Rose's interpretation here.

The Guildhall Steps

As lunchtime approaches, the steps of Portsmouth's Guildhall seem to get more popular. These people didn't sit as still as Charlie, but they were a sight easier to capture than the brisk, busy, pedestrians and riders of mobility scooters who were gone almost before I'd scribbled a head or a leg...

The first three sketches were done with the Rotring ArtPen. I then retreated to the car (parked by the Guildhall) and switched to mechanical pencil for this slightly larger sketch:

Charlie

Statue of Charles Dickens outside Portsmouth Guildhall. The author was born in the city. My drawing: Rotring ArtPen in A6 book.

Portsmouth Dinghies - Line and Wash

 

I'm rather enjoying placing loose washes of colour over a line drawing made in acrylic ink. The ink is waterproof, and so I can do what I like with the waterolour. I'm trying to make a point of not "colouring in" - the idea is to create an impression of colour. I'm keeping the palette limited, too.

This is a relatively new technique for me, so the sketches are experimental. Acrylic ink is not the sort of thing that fountain pens like, so I'm using a dip pen (not much of a hardship; I like dip pens, but they aren't very good for sketching on site, because of the open bottle of ink). Unfortunately, I was a little careless and dropped a blob of ink. It's mostly disguised as shadow on the dark blue boat.


Acrylic ink and watercolour on 300 g/m² fine grain / cold pressed (NOT) watercolour pad, 18 x 24 cm

Digital sketch

This is a sketch once removed from life; it's based on yesterday's pen sketch, with colour added from memory. I used an Android tablet (the Tesco Hudl 2), with a stylus and the Serious Paint app.