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

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

Pitt-Rivers dinosaurs, arches and bees

A series of quick sketches of reconstructed dinosaur skeletons in Oxford. All those knobbly bits make Eddy, Trike, Iggy and Rex tricky subjects, especially with children in tow.

The ceiling arches were an easier subject because they were drawn from the café (more time) and bees are smaller and simpler than dinosaur fossils. They did move, though; the Pitt-Rivers has a glass-sided hive (I'm so glad the dinosaurs didn't move!)

Pitt-Rivers dinosaurs, arches and bees

A series of quick sketches of reconstructed dinosaur skeletons in Oxford. All those knobbly bits make Eddy, Trike, Iggy and Rex tricky subjects, especially with children in tow.

The ceiling arches were an easier subject because they were drawn from the café (more time) and bees are smaller and simpler than dinosaur fossils. They did move, though; the Pitt-Rivers has a glass-sided hive (I'm so glad the dinosaurs didn't move!)

Thatcham, Berkshire

The Bluecoats School on the A4

Roof line of Thatcham House

Two of the most interesting buildings in Thatcham, sketched quickly in sepia calligraphy ink, black rollerball and with, in the case of the Bluecoats sketch, a Derwent Drawing pencil sky added later.