Thumbnails of the twelve figures as mentioned in the last Blog entry. I shall feature them all at a later date, probably after the New Year.

This is one of a series of twelve figure drawings I have done in the last few months. The images are from fashion designs and here I have been exploring images created with certain photography techniques. This white vignetting effect occours in pinhole camera photography. Used here in drawing it is a chance to show a fully developed drawing in the centre and then gradually reveal the stages of development as the eye moves to the periphery of the picture.
All the images are in pencil of varying softnesses (3B -12B) done on 300gsm cartridge. The size of each is A3. I plan to exhibit them as a self contained entity at some (as yet unspecified) time in the future.

Sometimes the boundary between drawing and painting can get a bit blurred. This was drawn in ultramarine watersoluble pencil and thin washes as layers applied afterwards.

There are dozens of headless and limbless statues lying about at ancient sites in the eastern Mediterranean. Its hardly surprising when we look at Greek history over the last two of three thousand years. What with the Phonecians, then the Medes and Persians, the Peloponesian wars to say nothing of the iconoclastic elements of later religious zealots. But the fragments that are extant make for interesting drawings. They've certainly given me an ongoing project to work on.

A couple of Hellenic figures. No comment really, I just fancied posting them from the last Cyprus sketchbook. The standing figure is the famous "Anzio Girl" and the other is simply a "Seated Girl", Γυνηη καθομι.

Harbour at Low Tide. St. Ives.

Drawn using two pages (full spread) of sketchbook. Interesting how the fold is co-incidently aligned with the sea margin.

St. Ives harbour. The beach at low tide. Pencil drawing on 150 gsm cartridge size 10 x 10 cm. I took a small pocket sized sketchbook with me to St. Ives. A handy size when working outside in an Atlantic gale.

I took with me my usual four clutch pencils; HB 0.5 mm., 3B 2 mm., 6B 3mm. and 4B 6mm. This latter functioned as a sort of graphite stick. I had a chunk of putty rubber and a collection of servietttes gleaned from the various cafés I visit.

I usually take along with me a (very) small box of watercolours. I carry the water in an old, small perfume spray bottle that holds about 50 mls. and a plastic medicine measure serves as a resevoir. All very cheap and easy to carry. I do allow myself one expensive item, the brush; it is a good quality sable that closes like a fountain pen. A good sable will shape to a very fine point. Its bulk holds colour well and when squeezed out, lifts excess colour off the paper with ease. The whole lot fits easily into a small satchel or as sometimes is the case, takes up no more room than two large anorak pockets.

Beach Margin No.2. Pencil drawing on A3 size 300gsm paper. I think this is a Mediterranean scene but it could be St. Ives where I will be for the next week or so.

This is the composite drawing I mentioned yesterday in which I used a mixture of paper types ranging from high quality to cheap wrapping paper. I also varied the medium too. The whole figure stands 130 cm tall so is almost life size. This was the first studio project that I got under way during this last stint in Cyprus. I did it, quite frankly, just to get something on to the bare walls. The studio space was newly whitewashed and more resembled a clinic than a studio. It took a couple of days to complete and became the jumping off point for a whole series of pieces on this theme. They were not all of necessity caryatids but the mythical theme was never very far away.

This is the left side panel of the head which is about A3 size ink drawing using a Rotring technical pen on tracing paper.
The right hand panel of the head is a watercolour painted on Bockingford 400gsm paper. The elements here were drawn initially using water soluble clour pencils and was was added later. This is my usual technique when using this medium. This is the most painterly panel on the figure; the rest of it made more use of line, sometimes in marker pen, sometimes paint (acrylic), sometimes graphite and again sometimes charcoal. Basically, if it made a mark, I used it.

Caryatid line drawing. I have been somewhat taken by the sculptures of the Hellenic perion (circa 500BC). Theiraccurate representations of the figure are quite striking. The caryatid is a pillar carved into the shape of a (usually female) figure. She is free standing but as a caryatid has the capital of the pillar sett above her head. I have taken the liberty to omit this.

Subsequent drawings have evolved into a more modern looking image but still with that quasi classical look. It is intended at sometime to do some larger work in the future based on this theme. Indeed there is already a multi-media drawing which I made while in Cyprus, - looking at the real thing, - and will show here probably tomorrow. On the left here she has evolved into a bookmark.

The original bookmark piece is a strip taken from a piece of A3 paper so is 42 cm long. I have copied this in to my PC, so copies 21cm long are available if you'd like one. Just let me know.

Arches within arches. Αγιος Λαζαρός church of St. Lazarus in Larnaka. A cloister runs parallel to the south side of the church and it has a vaulted cieling. It is interesting how we come to see more as we draw "from the life." The open arches in the arcading contrast with the solidity of the vaulted ceiling filling the spaces between the ribs. In this case, some of the ribbing is absent and the whole thing is held up by its own dynamic. Unlike English Gothic, the decoration here is minimal.

Solitary stone resting on the sand beneath the waves. While in Larnaka where the sea is warmer than the average swimming pool I often walked to and from the studio along the sea's edge and more often than not would walk along the shoreline but some 200 yards out to sea where the water was still only knee deep. The patterns created in the sand by wave action are fascinating on their own but I was struck by this single solitary stone. Its presence interrupted the flow of the lines in the sand. It reminded me of those zen gardens in Japan where isolated stones are surrounded by sand or gravel. Overlying all this is the bright sparkling reflection of the sun. The light tracery dances briefly over the more static imagery beneath..
I had to draw it.
4B graphite on 300gsm paper. Done in five minutes flat. Totally spontaneous.

Life drawing in Larnaka. I don't normally show my life drawings but this at least illustrates some of the wide ranging activities that take place at CYCA.

"Life Drawing is the last bastion of bourgiose art," I once heard quoted. Sorry but I strongly disagree. I have written my opinions on the other blog which you can see here.

Just as a matter of interest, I used the cloth the model was sitting on for my key refence points and one of the vertical folds as a proportion measuring tool instead of the model's head as a standard unit as is the norm. See Euan Uglow's work to see what I mean.

The Sea at Larnaka. An exercise in pure line drawing. Taken from an A5 sketctchbook.

"Sleeping Amazon" taken from a statue of the Hellenic period circa 400BC.

The sleeping myth image drifting on the Mediterranean tide, nothing solid, just a dream formed from the foam. The Eastern Med seems to do that to me. It plays on my northern European romantic streak.

The work is on 300 gsm cartridge paper, A3 size and line drawing using soft pencils, 4B, 6B and some 9B. An exercise in line only drawing. This is one of several pieces done at the Larnaka studios.

Sunrise on the Med. Water-soluble pencil drawing. This is from last year's Cyprus sketchbook. Finished work as paintings have followed from this in the series "Sea Pictures".
I will be on the bus to Heathrow later today. I will be in Larnaca, Cyprus, for the next month.

A finished drawing of stones on a beach, a logical conclusion to yesterday's image though this is not a finished version of that. Mixed media on Bockingford paper. 21 x 21 cm.

Stones on a beach.... Taken from a recent sketchbook. I do many of these little studies. I am interested in the way random objects lie in relation to each other. They are the still-lifes that occour in nature, whether it be bricks, gravel or a collection of other objects. There should soon be plenty of scope with the onset of autumn.

But I forget one thing: in a weeks time I will be back in Cyprus and will miss the English autumn . I am posting other drawings from the sketchbooks daily during the run up to departure on my other Blog.

Pages from a sketchbook showing forest landscape studies which resulted in a finished drawing...
...called "Faraway." A graphite drawing with charcoal underdrawing done on 400 gsm paper. You can also view the image here.

Window in the ruined abbey at Whitby. Taken from a sketchbook dated 2004.

I was at my daughter's place in Wales last week. We weeded a huge garden part of which I did a drawing of here. This was at a halfway point in the weed clearing operation. The image is from the current sketchbook. It is about A5 size.
The garden sweeps up a steep slope and is terraced with drystone walling and in this case, overgrown with bracken and brambles thus making up a chaotic mixture.
Well it did.... but now the weedings done.....