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.

The Making of Harry Potter - Studio Tour

Yesterday, we visited the Warner Bros site in Watford, where the sets, props and costumes from the eight Harry Potter films are presented to the public as a studio tour. There was a great deal to see, and while I had a sketchbook in my hand most of the time, I didn't come away with many worthwhile drawings - possibly because the subjects that suggested themselves were exceedingly large or intricate or both.

Steam Locomotive Oulton Hall

The Knight Bus

The inevitable gift shop at the end

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!)