bb king

Portrait of BB King for something I'm currently working on...

marion

Look, I KNOW this isn't a great likeness, and I know that the hatching is more than a little indelicate, but I've tried to draw this about a million times and this is as good as it gets. OKAY?!?

paris sketchbook '94

Two drawings of the Sacre Couer, made two years apart! Sadly, the earlier one (top) is the better version. Sigh...

paris sketchbook '94

paris sketchbook '94

Two more images from the 1994 Paris sketchbook. Click on an image to optimise your viewing experience.

paris sketchbook '94

Marion and Jo (you know who you are) are proving rather difficult to capture on paper at present due to a breakdown in talent, inspiration and perseverence, so as a thinly-veiled diversionary tactic, it's time to answer the 'tea-powered scribbles' mailbag which isn't literally bursting at the seams.

An electronic epistle has been sent from a Mr P. McGladdery of Oldham, Lancs. He writes (with reference to recent postings):

"Can I be on your blog? My absence seems ridiculous given I am both a soul star and almost a Yorkshire man".

Well, Mr P's letter had the 'tea-powered scribbles' team rummaging through the archives and they had to go all the way back to the box marked 'September 1994' to unearth an A6 Daler Rowney sketchbook with a picture of the aforementioned correspondent in it. You'll recall that Mr P. played Passepartout to our own Phineas Fogg on a 80-day tour around the world* that year and that 'tea-powered scribbles' kept a detailed visual chronicle** of everything encountered along the way. Over the next few days then, we intend to share with you some of the pages from that September 1994 sketchbook and it seems only reasonable, given the original request, that we begin with an inky likeness of a certain Mr McGladdery. Enjoy.

*We went to Paris for about a week.

**I did some drawings while I was there.

...but only one for David

... and three attempts at Emma...

I was quite happy with the first drawing I made of Emma (bottom) until J. pointed out that the hatching on her face made her look a bit, erm, 'excessively wrinkled'. It's certainly over-hatched. I find it really difficult to apply hatching to women's faces without making them look ugly, or old, or hairy. I think the strokes need to be shorter and finer — maybe drawn with a different sized nib to the one I usually use.

Anyway, I redrew the picture and initially, I thought it was an improvement on the original. What was I thinking? It's TERRIBLE. I gave her a really fat neck and tiny squinty eyes that she doesn't have in real life. At least, they weren't there when I last looked.

So, preferring to salvage what I could of the first attempt rather than go for a third version, I scanned in the original drawing, deleted the offending marks with my digital eraser, printed out a copy and rehatched the affected areas. The new version isn't markedly different from the old, but I'm much happier with it. We'll just have to see what the reaction from the Earth Mother is. And if she's mortally offended by it, I'm not too concerned about any physical retribution. She's in Uganda. Heh, heh.

it took four attempts to get graham right...

sketchbook

Another double page spread from the A4 sketchbook I'm currently working in.

I sat in the Casson's back garden one afternoon and drew an enormous tree they have there (a sycamore, if memory serves me correctly). It took me about four hours to get most of the drawing done and then I returned to it periodically over the weekend to fill in the rest of the leaves.

Initially, there was a lot of heavy hatching on the shed as I tried to capture the cast shadow of the tree but I put so much in that you couldn't see the wood (en shed) for the tree and I had to remove quite a lot of detail with a tippex pen. It's better for it.

sketchbook

An A4 sketch from a couple of weeks ago. This is the first chance I've had to scan it in though, as I needed to utilise the A3 scanner at work.

J and I went up to North Yorkshire for the weekend to spend some time with the Earth Mother and the rest of the Casson brood. We met Graham (the Casson paterfamilias) outside a London train station and he kindly drove us all the way to sun-baked Northallerton for a thoroughly splendid couple of days. The food was incredible, the weather amazing (they'd turned the heating back on since I was last up North) and the company as friendly a bunch of people as you could hope to meet. Thanks to all concerned for their many kindnesses, especially Marion and Graham.

With regards to the drawing above, I'd intended to fill the whole double spread with inky scratches (good name for a blog that) but I got a little car sick after completing the right hand page and had to stop.

As always, click on the above to see a larger version. More Yorkshire-inspired sketches to follow over the coming days...