Thursday, November 22, 2018

New Sketchbook Series

Because of changes in family circumstances visits to the studio have been a bit sporadic of late, hence the slow progress of the larger work, "Dream of the Rood". However it has not stopped me from working at home using sketchbooks. I usually carry an A5 hardback one with me; it is a useful "go anywhere" size but for now I've bought an A4 book instead, a proper desktop size and am using it to make mainly pen-and-wash/watercolour work working from a huge amount of photographs accumulated over the years. I'll try to keep this book for finished or semi-finished work rather than the quickly scribbled ideas. We'll see....

I visited Lichfield Cathedral in November last year. I find myself attracted to the  not so  obvious bits that tourists flock to, but rather the obscure and sometimes apparently neglected corners which probably have their own story to tell, making me speculate what these little niches are about. This is one such outside the South Wall of the nave. It must have served some purpose in the past.
All the pages are A4 as pointed out earlier and drawn on 150 gsm cartridge paper. Line drawing with a 0.3 mm. black ink micro-pen with watercolour.

 There is a ruined Saxon Monastery at Heysham Head near Lancaster. The photo was taken in August 2015 whilst showing a friend of mine from Cambridge around. We had a good afternoon at the site doing quite a bit of Plein Air sketching. I only completed this piece  this morning.
Drawn on A4 150 gsm cartridge paper. Line drawing with a 0.3 mm. black ink micro-pen with watercolour.

Sunday, November 04, 2018

Dream of the Rood update

Detail of the latest development in the right hand panel of Dream of the Rood. Note the vertical ans horizontal cross hatching.

Thursday, November 01, 2018

Dream of the Rood - update

Slow progress made even slower. My wife took ill at the end of August. Consequently I can't get to my studio as often as I'd have liked.
Here's the work so far. All three windows (or lights as they are called in the stained glass world) now have the images in place and it only remains to put in some fine line detail. That could take up just as much time as the work so far.


The work is on a sheet of 300 grammes per square metre smooth drawing paper.

In the meantime I have taken this opportunity to work at home editing the many sketchbooks I've accumulated over the years and intend to show some pages from the past here.