Ferry ports

 

Dover and Calais

Calais

Calais

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).

Odiham Castle

Odiham Castle (known locally as King John's Castle) is not actually in Odiham, although it isn't very far away, being nominally in North Wanborough. It isn't really in any village, though; it stands, peacefully, by itself next to the Basingstoke Canal, which - fittingly - does not actually go to Basingstoke.

I was fascinated by the poppies growing on the walls (above).

All sketches A6, executed in fountain pen. 
Top sketch also has Inktense pencil and then more fountain pen ink, both added after leaving the site.

Basingstoke Spiritualist Church

Yesterday, I had occasion to be loitering in the Proteus Creation Space car park. Our - Artikinesis' - exhibition was within the Creation Space. Making more pictures of Basingstoke was, of course, completely pointless.

So I did it anyway.

I had had my eye on the Spiritualist Church building for a while. A low, corrugated shack, directly opposite the grandeur of All Saints (not pictured), it looks like a relic from a not-too-distant past.

Drawn in an A6 sketchbook using Winsor and Newton's Indian Red calligraphy ink, loaded into my Sailor Fude de Mannen (Japanese calligraphy pen).

Fallen Trees in the Woods on Greenham Common

A little on the blue side because of the lateness of the hour that I took the photograph, this is the first sketch in a new sketchbook (a Seawhite "Popular" book - 250 x 190mm), and the first of several that I made on a circular wak on Greenham Common today. It was made in indigo calligraphy ink using the Sailor Fude de Mannen fountain pen that I imported from Japan.

The Mayflower at Newbury Racecourse

Newbury Racecourse has a railway station that is often used by mainline steam trains to take on water (it's not a busy station, and it has a convenient siding). Rose and I managed to be there while the Cathedrals Express, pulled by the Mayflower, was taking on water en route to Exeter this morning. This is my sketch from the platform on the other line.

It's a bit of a mish-mash, my sketch - there's Rotring ArtPen Indian ink, indigo calligraphy ink delivered via the Sailor pen, and Derwent Drawing pencils.

The Bunkers, Greenham Common

These are the Cruise missile bunkers, as seen from the other side of Greenham Common, near Newbury in Bershire. If you remember the 80s, you may remember the highly charged scenes of protest against the presence of the American Cruise missiles here.

The missiles are gone. The bunkers remain. Behind double razor wire fences... (which recently served to keep the public out of the Star Wars film set that appeared there).

My sketch-as-I-walk (it was a family walk on the common; time was limited) was done using a Japanese calligraphy pen with added graphite. The writing was done while, ahem, stationary. (There's a pun in there somewhere).

St. Peter's, Headley

 

St Peter's is a pretty little church, surrounded by dense woodland o two sides, that I drive past fairly often. I've stopped to sketch it once before - albeit with less than satisfactory results. But that was a few years ago, and I think I may have got better at quick sketching.

I had to be quite quick - it was cold out there!

As well as the three sketches of the church, I also turned to the woods and a fabulous yew within the churchyard with stonework leaing up against it, and ivy-covered crosses... perhaps some people like their churchyards neat and tidy, but I do rather like to see evidence of nature and the passage of time.

Although I'm not laying claim to any churchyards, of course.

All sketches done using the Japanese calligraphy pen, with graphite added to the churchyard.

St. Michael's Mount - ink and graphite

The Mount is always worth a quick sketch. On Saturday, I was fortunate enough to be indoors - at the Godolphin Arms - and warm.

Rotring Artpen and graphite

Prussia Cove

Another line and wash, this time from a rocky inlet in Cornwall (via a photograph).

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

Bridge, Bradgate Park - Line and wash

A dramatic scene from a dramatic place - Bradgate Park, Leicester. I thought I'd pick a less urban image this time around. The contrast between the bridge's dark shadows and the misty fade of the distance prompted me to use two inks; I diluted the sepia for part of the drawing.

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

St. Mary's, Melton Mowbray, from Edgerton Lodge Gardens

This is a view of the town I grew up in. From a photograph taken in February 2013, on a return visit. I used a fuller palette for this sunlit winter scene.

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

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