Quick street scene

The Bridge on the Moskva River

Suited and booted

Edinburgh Skyline

Kim

Hashima Island

I was watching "Skyfall" on TV the other night which featured a scene on an abandoned island which turned out to be a real place off the coast of Japan near Nagasaki.  According to Wikipedia "The island was populated from 1887 to 1974 as a coal mining facility. The island's most notable features are the abandoned and undisturbed concrete apartment buildings and the surrounding sea wall."  It looked like a cool location to draw so I checked out Google street view which has great shots from the island and from the sea.

 

I drew this using a nib pen and Winsor & Newton black Indian Ink.  It is the first time I have used this and it is pretty tricky.  I also made the mistake of using it whilst sitting on my sofa which now has a lovely black ink blot on the cushion.  Well, you live and learn.

 

 

Great Loot!

As Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes would say, there was excellent 'loot' under my Christmas Tree this year, not least this great collection of art materials.  I'm drinking some Brazilian Moscato at present and thinking of some project ideas.  Hopefully  there will be lots of sketching to come in the New Year so stay tuned folks. 

 

Merry Christmas everyone.  Lots of love from Hot Oyster of Edinburgh, Scotland.

 

Loreto Aprutino

Filling the void

 

I haven't had much time for art recently, but hopefully I'll be able to create some new sketches over the Christmas break.  Meantime, here are a couple of skribbly sketches.

Thumbnail landscape

Conte scribbles

I love Google Street view and I drew these very rough sketches with Conte Pencils whilst doing some armchair travelling

Reading

Found a great sketch of a reading man and a hiding dog by @sallyfriend42 on Twitter.  Again, a good learning tool to try and replicate another artist's work.  I've missed out the dog, and there are many flaws but I enjoyed the process.  I am not sure what she used but I have used an F pencil here.

Untitled

Stag

 

A bit of leg

The man and the red umbrella

Profiles

Rhinoceros

Here is another lunch time quickie with my trusty HB pencil I use at work.  I drew this from a photo on the net (as there aren't many rhinos roaming about Edinburgh) rather than from a sketch as I did with the little girl image yesterday.  I adopted cross hatching for the shading again.  I think this has a little more of a sophisticated outcome than if I had just shaded in the usual way as I have done in the past.

 

Little girl in the sun hat

I occasionally try to replicate sketches I find in books or on the internet. I find it helpful to try to learn from accomplished artists.  I found this lovely sketch on Twitter by Turkish artist Erdal Ekmekci @erdalekmekci79.  I recommend you check out his Twitter feed. He has some really excellent pieces.

I've introduced some cross hatching here.  Mine is pretty heavy handed compared to Erdal but it is the first time I have tried this so I don't mind too much at this stage.

Taiko Drummer

Water soluble graphite pencil (HB and 8B), Inktense pencil and watercolour pencil

Inspiration

Dirty Burning by Victoria Morton

I visited the Generation exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern art in Edinburgh today. It celebrates the last 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland.  Here are some of the pieces I saw which caught my eye:

Child by Julie Roberts

Restraining Coat
 by Julie Roberts

 These four pieces are by Charles Avery, an artist who is largely self taught.  His pieces were outstanding. In particular there were two enormous pieces (the image above with the pyramids in the background is one large piece and the other three are tiny details from two of his largest works on display which caught my eye.  This type of drawing is what I aspire to (although not quite on this vast scale!).  His pieces were wholly imaginative and beautifully rendered.  I spent ages looking at these and enjoyed finding delightful little elements. Mr Avery, you blew my mind.

These beautifully rendered images of fabric
were quite stunning.

These two are small elements from two
paintings from Alison Watt's Shift series







Big sheets and smudges

I bought some willow charcoal and A3 sketching paper today. I've not used willow charcoal before.  It is really lovely to use and I was surprised by how easily it smudges, but I really liked that effect and it was fun to apply.  I'll need a fixative if I draw anything worth saving.  No doubt I can hang fire on that for now. I did this very quick sketch whilst waiting for my pasta to cook at dinner time.  I'll try some more tomorrow.

 

 

A wee bit ambitious

As you may know I've been spending some time during my lunch breaks at work doing some drawing, which is a pleasant way to pass the time in the middle of the day.  As ever, coming up with ideas for drawing projects is difficult for me.  I need to find something I feel I am capable of rendering in sketch form and also which interests me.  I am an avid follower of current affairs and I've found photo journalism to have given me some inspiration (my Kobani and Gaza images for example).

I've used an HB pencil and 4B pencil here.

 

 

I found a great shot  of workers dismantling the Indian Navy Ship INS Vikrant at a ship breakers yard in Mumbai by photo journalist Danish Siddiqui.  This is my work in progress based on this shot.  I want to gradually improve upon my urban sketching and whereas in the past I've focused on single figures or buildings I want to try and move on to piecing a whole scene together.   Clearly I am over-stretching myself but I think you have to do that to try to progress.  

Boxer

Kobani air strike

The Brazilian fisherman

Soldier

Face

Speed skaters

Tom Hardy, looking better every day

I decided to re-visit a photograph of my favourite actor Tom Hardy which I attempted to draw in July of this year.  I wanted to see if my drawing had improved.  I am rather pleased with the update (the second picture) as I think this demonstrates a big improvement. There is still a long way to go of course but I think this goes to show that anyone can teach themselves to draw if they put their mind to it.  The picture is unfinished but I wanted to record here what I had done so far.    

The sculpture studio

Street art - Edinburgh

There is very little street art in Edinburgh which is a shame.  We have had a new addition to the urban landscape however.  Work In Progress Edinburgh have recently brightened up the otherwise dull East Market Street.  The group describe themselves as "a new organisation representing a group of independent artists, creative practitioners, urbanists, activists and others who like to collaborate across all cultures and disciplines".  I hope this work is an impetus for the growth of artistic pieces across the city.