Rogier van der Weyden was a Flemish Painter based in Brussels and did this painting around 1435. It started out as the reredos at a chapel in Leuwen but is now at the Prado in Madrid. It is almost certainly one of his most famous pieces and I feature it here for comparison with a drawing he did later in 1460. What I find striking about this, apart from the composition being very similar to the painting is the style of the figures. They seem to have a quality very similar to a much later artist, Giacometti who was a twentieth century sculptor. Giacometti went in for elongated figures that posessed these same expressive qualities found in this Northern Renaissance drawing. You can read more here. Follow the links to Rogier van der Weyden.
Its worth switching on the speakers on your PC when visiting the wga site for its baroque music.

One of the images shown by the Drawing Research Network on their Flickr page.

Sarah Lightman
Originally uploaded by DRN_SWG

I started my working life as an engineering draughtsman and because of this I get the urge to draw something mechanical from time to time. This particular image, done in my usual way with graphite on 300 gsm paper, is the latest example. It is of a motorbike brake caliper. The nature of the piece meant I had to approach it as a technical drawing at first. Because the detail shows man made machined components the initial drawing utilised tee-square and set square. Then, once the line work was done, more traditional drawing methods were used. I think that well made machine parts have quite a sculptural quality about them. It elevates the everyday and mundane to the realms of so-called high art. But then that is what art is all about in my opinion, to highlight the mundane and say to the viewer, "Look at this."
There is another example of this "highlighting the mundane" on my other Blog where I have a photo of newly installed pipework beneath a boiler. The soldering is not so neat but I plan to make a drawing from this sometime and I'll probably tidy it up a bit.
Picasso once said, "Art is a lie. But through this lie the truth is revealed."

Beach #5. Graphite on watercolour paper with some tinting. Size A3. I used water colour paper to get the graininess for the stone texture. This particular rock pool is on the Morecambe Bay tideway where the rock is a soft variety of sandstone which means the sea's action makes the stones rounded but never smooth. Compare that with say, Cornwall where the indiginous rock is granite which can be smoothed to a fine polish.
I remember drawing this on site in a cold November gale whose only interruption from America was Ireland. Clear blue skies, an empty beach, the sussurating waves, the call of the birds..... and frozen fingers. Who says I don't suffer for my art?

Larnaka. This too is A3 in size but done on smoother 300 gsm cartridge paper. As above, blue skies, sussurating waves, birdsong but this time not frozen fingers but a risk of sunburn, even at seven o' clock in the morning.

Seeing I'd mentioned my "Sea Pictures" in the last posting I though I ought to show a couple here. Most of the series are paintings so strictly speaking, they hardly qualify for a draughtsman's Blog. But you can see some of the sea pictures here.

"Beech". Graphite drawing on A3 size 300 gsm paper. This is one of the coppiced beech trees growing by the Luneside cycle track that once was a railway in Lancaster. I did the drawing only a couple of days ago.
While still settling in to the new studio space the tendency is to produce very varied work. I should be working on Sea Pictures for the upcoming exhibition at Arteria Gallery here in Lancaster but...
.....watch this space, eh?