Previous Sketchbooks (6)

St Ives 2001. Significant in that this was a first visit to Cornwall and in December too. Certainly avoided the holiday crowds. There were a number of subsequent visits over a four - five year period.

 Speed sketches made going down the M5 from Birmingham. It was all new to me at the time so my pencil, or rather the hand that held it, was rarely still. This is but one page of that journey.

Cliff-top Chimney at Cape Cornwall just a few miles up the coast from Land's End.

 Boulders at Clodgy Head at the Western end of Porthmeor Beach, St. Ives. The two skyline figures (who were there at the time) give some impression of the sheer scale of this.

Previous Sketchbooks (5)

Tunisia 2000 part two. The previous page showed work that was done in a static situation, i.e not bouncing around on a vehicle seat or the back of a camel. These shown below are essentially speed drawings done while "on the move".
I pencilled some comments on the page(s) at the time which should explain where I was.

 Roman City at Spietla on theEast coast some few miles south of Tunis.

 In the Desert.

Previous Sketchbooks (4)

Tunisia 2000. I'd just turned 60 at the time and I was given the holiday of a lifetime to celebrate.A tour of the country and some time in the desert. Within that fortnight I filled a whole sketchbook doing speed drawings whilst on the move on various means of transport from a coach to a Land Rover and even the back of a camel. Many of the drawings were rather rough because of the uneven movements of our transports across variable terrain. This group of  drawings are more finished as we had stopped at the particular venue so I could take my time and with a coffee to hand..... need I say more?
The first one in monochrome is done in water soluble pencil. The other three are pen and watercolour wash.

A corridor in a Roman Amphitheatre at El_Jem on the North-East coast. The Roman Remains here are remarkably well preserved, probably because of the dry climate and perhaps a lot of it may have spent a large part of the last two millennia buried under the sands of the Sahara.Who knows? Its quite unlike the Roman remains found here on this cold, windswept and wet island of Britain.
On many of these sketchbook pages I wrote down where I was at the time so some will hardly need further explanation.

 Douga lies in the far north of Tunisia, well out of the desert area. There's a whole Roman town here. It only needs the woodwork replacing.

  A Belly Dancer who obligingly performed her routine staying on one part of the floor just long enough for me to get the information down on paper.

Carthage. The Romans were not best pleased with Hannibal giving them a drubbing so they crossed the Mediterranean and demolished the Carthaginian town.There's quite a bit more to the story than that but even the ruins show that these North African people were no mean builders.

Previous Sketchbooks (3)

York. Easter 2000. No commentary needed here. The notes on the sketchbook pages are quite legible.
I might mention here I always use and A5 sketchbook so each page is 21 cm tall and 14.8 cm wide.

Previous Sketchbooks (2)

From the year 2000.

Northumberland. Some in the forest and some in the North Pennine region.