Exercise (4) Statues. Project (5) Townscapes.

I didn't mange to do as much work as I would have liked to have on statues, I was looking forward to it, but needed to press on. 

Pencil.

This statue is on top of the buttercross in Swaffham, Norfolk, where I was passing through the other day.

Fineliner and blue highlighter pen.

this is a quick drawing of the same statue and the buttercross also the space and buildings around.

Pencil.

Parliament Square, Hertford, (near were I live.)

With this drawing I tried to establish the setting of the statue as well as the statue itself. 

Pencil and black conté.

Parliament Square, Hertford, closer view.

Blue ink drawn with brush.

This statue is of King Henry VI, the founder of King's college Cambridge. 

This drawing is looking in through the doorway into founders court, (not the greatest of views, but it is a very fine statue.)  

Pencil, blue ink (applied with brush) and pen.

The same statue as the one above, just more worked and a better angle. 

Exercise (3) A limited Palette Study. Project (5) Townscapes.

 Pen, watercolour pencil and wash.

I looked back over my work and found this drawing, from Exercise (1) Sketchbook of Townscape Drawings. 

Pen and washes with red gouache, on a white support. 

I sketched the buildings out in pencil and pen, then added one blue watercolour wash for the shadows followed (when dry) with a brown wash, 

lastly I put in a shop-front in a bright red gouache, two of the shop signs and the figure's coat (on the right.)

I think its a rather boring piece of work and having the chance to do it again, I think the view might look better if done in  pastels or conté, I am displeased with my penmanship and think it is an area I will work on in the future, I just very dully outline everything and it looks wrong.

All though the buildings all go away to the same vanishing point the background in this work is befuddled and unclear and it is difficult to tell that actually the street at the other end starts to go down hill. 

there are a few bits I like though, the side of the street on the right, all in blue and the pie sign hanging above is rather quaint, also I like how the woman in the red coat looks, 

(she has a bit of movement to her.)  

Exercise (2) Study of a Townscape Using Line. Project (5) Townscapes.

This is in Cambridge, down by the river, opposite Magdalene College, a row of cafes and the like.

Watercolour washes with pen.

This was fun to sketch, 

I don't usually use both pages of a sketchbook in a panoramic manner, (its something I might do more of.) 

 Cambridge is a fun place to sketch, all the bicycles, buildings, and interesting people.

Some of the people are better than others, I like the way the persons sitting eating to the right turned out and the man, leaning, talking to the other selling ice-cream on the far left, seems to have a bit of character, 

the rest didn't work that well. 

Redy brownish pencil and fountain pen with wash. 

I chose to veer to the right side of my sketchbook drawing, as I thought it the one with more interest and worth developing into my line drawing.

I do like the way the trees get fainter as the recede into the distance, and the little punter on the river seems to work well.

I enjoyed trying to find different sorts of marks to create the leaves on the trees when just using line. 

I am aware that there should probably be more line, this being an exercise in line, and I probably shouldn't have relied so heavily on the wash to describing my tones and shadows.   

I also realized the man to the left, standing consulting a public map, was far too tall and was mucking-up the perspective, 

so, in the reworked drawing below, having tried to shrink him, he has become a little too dark though (owing to me having to wet the ink of the fountain pen to try and erase the larger version of the figure.)

Redy brownish pencil and fountain pen with wash. 

Exercise (1) Sketchbook of Townscape Drawings. Project (5) Townscapes.

I was in York for these town sketches. 

A beautiful town, filled with some very interesting streets. 

Sepia watercolour drawn with brush.

I like sketching with a brush, 

here I used mostly line, and making sure to put in the people (as quickly as possible) as I wanted a busy look, rather then a ghost town.

Blue watercolour drawn with brush.

Using the brush here again I did this view of these buildings, I especially enjoyed the shadow cast by the building to the left, I ever so quickly put in the man sitting reading his paper.

Watercolour drawing.

I would have liked to have worked on this longer (as with all my sketches,) but it's quite fun, just having the bright yellow signs and the red bus in the background.

Pen and wash.

I don't like this one very much, the angles are all wrong, which would of been fine (indeed, most of the angles are wrong in these drawings) but the fact I colour it before trying to correct the problems, does not reflect well on my impatient character.

Whiteboard marker, felt tip pen and finliner.

This was  drawn in Cambridge, 

just outside King's College.

Pen, watercolour pencil and wash.

Back to York, 

this is a charming street with so many wonky old buildings that it I was hard put to make them look real. 

Conté and red chalk.

Conté grows on me more and more, 

I quite like this sketch, the building on the left is a bit off, but I am pleased with the red brick-ish  texture I was able to get with conté and chalk.

Research Point.

Exercise (3) Aerial or Atmospheric Perspective. Project (4) Perspective.

This was a fun exercise, although wasn't very good at it.

Red chalk pencil.

Charcoal pencil.

I did another quick sketch of the same view in charcoal pencil. 

A soft pencil (a 6B, I think.)

I failed to get a really good sense of distance in this one,

I tend to go too dark in the background and then I am not able to go dark enough in the foreground. 

Blue and black conté.

This seems to get better depth, but is rather clumsily drawing on account of the unwieldiness of the conté sticks.

Whiteboard marker, felt tip and fineliner.

Black conté and charcoal pencil.

I like this one it seems to get the distance and I like the windswept look of it too.

Exercise (2) Angular Perspective. Project (4) Perspective.

Again, I drew the college.

Felt tip pen.

I put in the perspective lines with a red pen.

So, the part of the building going to my vanishing point on the right I got pretty much

But the left side of the building was way off, the angle of the line indicating the bottom of the wall is so very wrong. 

The angle is always much more extreme then I think it will be. 

Here I added on a bit of paper to see were the vanishing point was.

Exercise (1) Parallel Perspective - An Interior View. Project (4) Perspective.

his is a view through a door looking into a room in the college where my father works.

I chose the viewpoint because of the interest of table, floor pattern and the pillars that provided for a drawing in one point perspective. 

Pencil.

This is a photograph before I put on the lines to my vanishing point. 

Now I can see how wrong I am.

Interestingly the closer the objects were to my eye level, the more accurate to the lines they were, I almost got the table right on the mark...but the tops of the pillars on the ceiling were way off.