Heads and Bus Rides

Some sketches from the other day:

Cafe Heads

Two Women

Direct response drawing

Something loose

People

From the other day, sketching in a cafe.

Poor woman (I drew her so ugly!)

Direct response drawing, sketchbook

The Eternal Triangle

A very satisfying afternoon on Saturday. I woke up thinking about Jacques Tati and decided I wanted to draw a character kind of inspired by his appearance in Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot

Here’s a taster from my sketchbook:

Boy

He then introduced this girl:

Girl

Who was waiting for her date:

The Rake

I’m going to refine these and they might form part of something bigger.

Cafe People

The Man in the Long Black Coat

Working.

Starbucks Staff

There is no better pasttime than sitting in a cafe and sketching people. Except maybe drawing the epople in my imagination, but that’s for another post.

I seem to have misplaced a couple of scans – never mind, next time.

Whilst I was sketching the man on the computer a group of teenage girls came in and sat in front of him. They all had identical hairstyles and style of clothes and all were plastered in make-up.  I’m so glad I’m not a teenager and don’t feel compelled to conform in order to get my peers approval! It’s not a period of my life I enjoyed – I certainly didn’t conform but like everyone else of that age secretly I wanted approval even whilst I appeared to disdain it.  A difficult period of life.

Man with two sticks

Man With Two Sticks

I followed the man in the street, then took a photo and drew from it at home. I really like how it turned out.

Direct response drawing.

And what has happened to the frame again??

Three Pears

Three Pears

Just doodling in my sketchbook. there’s something pleasing about the shapes of pears.

Thinking

about a commission.

One

Two

Three

Churchyard Chickens

Churchyard Chickens

Spotted in St Mary’s Churchyard in East Bergholt, three chickens making themselves at home. Here are two of them. They moved rather quickly – they weren’t particularly friendly and wanted to be left to get on with important chicken business, unfortunately, so I didn’t get much of a chance to sketch them. I took a few photos though, on my other blog.

Wrestling

I started work on a really nice commission today – for my local food co-op. Unfortunately it was impossible to draw at the co-op – too many people moving too much in too small a space – and too many friendly interested people who kept talking to me (and lots of temptation for me to talk to them), so I only did a few sketches. Most of it will be done in the peace of my studio from reference photos. Which I hate doing, but at least these are my own and I can make them BIG.

Here’s someone wrestling with a bag of dried mango. But you knew that, right?

Wrestling with mango

Direct response drawing.

Keep the faith

Keep the Faith

Gun toting Christians demonstrate admirably how you can reconcile two completely opposed belief systems, if you want something enough.

Done somewhat idly last night, continuous line, based on a photo in Saturday’s Guardian mag. The couple really do have shiny too-black hair.

I hate drawing from photos – I know some people prefer it, but I’ve always preferred drawing from life, photos are just too small. And of course, with other people’s photos there are copyright issues too.

I’d like to make some illustrations on this topic – but I need some people to pose with (fake) guns! And to have their hair dyed black…