Canal

End (or start I guess) of the canal, with the warehouses and haven banks between it and the river, out of view on the left. Spiral tower is for climbing. Slightly wonky scan.

Crane and courts

             Quick pen drawing of the courts with a crane overhead. An interesting building.

Not much

Didn't get anything done today, but here's a small thing I did the other night. Shadows and lots of the lines are completely off. I'll do a proper, larger one in this sort of style soon. A futuristic angle maybe. I just finished Foundation by Isaac Asimov, which might be why I want to look in that direction. Also been reading lots about architecture.

Trying out digital painting

           One of the drawings from Bodiam inverted and some white lines added. Small experiment.

One of my first goes at digital painting (done a few small bits ages ago). Again from one of the drawings.

A quick sketch of the mighty John Lewis building. Looking at it now, it's clear lots of the lines are off; I might give it another go from a different angle.

I was going to do a few more round Exeter, but the weather was terrible so maybe tomorrow.

Trip to Kent and Sussex

Some drawings I did during a week camping in Kent. One or two are in East Sussex.

Tomorrow I'm going out to do some drawings of Exeter. I haven't done any since the college work a good while ago. It's so easy to just sit around playing games and reading (and mostly sleeping).

                                         

         Sunset from the field just outside the forest we camped in. Bodiam is just out of view behind the trees.           There's a big castle there which sadly I didn't draw.

Looking out at the moon and the field (one the sunset was drawn from) through a gap in the trees. 

Bottom is looking in the reverse direction to the sunset and top is the Grand Burstin Hotel in Folkestone, right next to the harbour. I guess the building is supposed to resemble a cruise ship.

 Dungeness power station and lighthouse, with houses right in the shadow of it. Strange place; probably my favourite drawing of the lot.

Norman barbican in Lewes. Had a look around on the way back.

Rooftops from the car park. The spire is from a Victorian memorial library (I drew it from memory, as we left halfway through).

I realised the pen I was using was really bad at bleeding through the pages, which never used to be a problem. For these I've gone back to using a faber & castell pen and a really fine liner.

I'll post the Exeter drawings tomorrow and perhaps some of these digitally coloured.

Acrylic and working from memory

Added some watered down acrylic to a quick pen drawing of my aunt and uncles garden. 

I was lying down on the trampoline to try and capture the strange perspective of having the whole circle in your view and also the base. It frames the sky and the rooftops and plants. Lots of ink bled through because it's thin paper for sketching, not for painting.

Practicing drawing without a reference. I feel it's a huge step from where I am with observational drawing (I'll post some life drawings and portraits soon). I find I always end up drawing the same sort of faces. And always very flat, it's so difficult to capture the sense of a heavy, 3D head. It's both fun and frustrating, working from nothing. Complete freedom but it can be overwhelming, end up resorting to more of a symbol of an eye, for example, rather than  the slit or crumpled up skin an eye often is.