The black arts

A couple of quick sketches to try out my new medium of white chalk oil pencil on black paper.

The fairytale wood

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I had completed a picture using my more experimental technique of drawing with the Inktense pencils then applying water freely rather than staying rigidly between the lines so here it is.  I think it has a rather storybook feel about it.  I feel as though Hansel and Gretel may appear at any moment....

Frottage

I’ve ‘discovered’ frottage technique. This involves putting something under a piece of paper and then rubbing across it with a pencil or such. I was reading a bit about this and there is a suggestion, on Wikipedia at least, that this is a form of aleatoricism (no I’d not heard of that word before either). This is the art of chance, if you will. I’m not sure that there is a great deal of chance involved here though. I picked the subject, placed it where I required, chose the paper and pencil to use and chose which direction to rub and how heavy to apply the pencil to the paper. Clearly there is the element of unknown as you wait for the image to appear; you can’t be quite sure how it will look when it emerges. I think that must be true of most art though. I’m no art theorist however so I shall say no more about it. Feel free to add your own views by clicking on the comment option below.

I've used an Inktense green pencil for the rubbing and for the red detailing then applied some water to highlight the leaf structure.  For the red parts I dipped the pencil into the water (the first time I have tried it that way) and I enjoyed applying the wet pencil.  I'm happy with the outcome.

The Hikarie experiment

I feel that I should venture out and try to find a way to make my art a bit more expressive and imaginative rather than just making images of a subject for its own sake. To that end, I tried to be a bit more adventurous with the Asakusa picture in the previous post below. To date, I’ve done several drawings in ink then coloured them in with watercolour pencils later. I love the cartoon effect which this creates. However in the Asakusa picture I’ve drawn only with watercolour pencils and applied water fairly haphazardly to see what would happen.

In this picture of the interior of the Hikarie building in Tokyo (see my previous entry on  16 September 2014) I’ve used the shapes formed by the architectural infrastructure, to create an abstract. I really liked the effect of the black ink Inktense pencil in the Asakusa picture though the result is not quite as pleasing here. I still like it though and it was a useful learning experience. In the next day or so I’ll post another attempt where I’ve drawn an autumnal woodland scene, this time with a more pleasing outcome. Stay tuned…..

Asakusa



 

Anatomy of a drawing

My inspiration; a photograph I took at
Dr Neil's Garden in Edinburgh
 

Zig artist pen
 





Derwent Inktense pencil

 

Add a little water with
a brush and voila



Floral 2

Random round-up

Piper

Not an uncommon sight on the streets of Edinburgh.  I took this shot of a piper busking on the Mound in the city centre.

First World War tank

Falkland Palace

I've finished my Falkland Palace sketch.  I drew this over a few lunch breaks at work.  This activity makes a nice change from just surfing the net.  Most of the sketch was completed with my HB pencil I have at work.  I added a small number of details with a 6B at the end. 

The Palace is in Fife in Scotland and the drawing is based upon a photo I took there a few years ago.    You'll note that the tree is missing (you might spot it in the preliminary sketch I posted a few days ago).  I removed it as it was in the wrong place. I had planned to add it back in later but I'm not very good at trees so, having been quite happy with what I had done so far, I didn't wish to spoil it by plonking a big splodgy mess in the image. I think that's what is called artistic license. The Palace dates back to the 15th Century at least and contains the oldest tennis court in Britain still in use, having been constructed in 1539 (Thank you to @Falkland_Palace for providing the dates).

The village of Falkland itself is worth a day trip.  It is a pretty little spot which was the setting for some scenes from the TV series of the Diana Gabaldon novels "Outlander" which were filmed there in 2013.



detail

Bullfight

The Cray-pas are fun to draw with, though it is tricky to draw detail.  However I had a go at creating a scene so here is my attempt:

Eyes

Floral

Shibuya

Pre-loved Cray-pas

I was given this lovely little pre-loved box of oil pastels.  From the design of the box it looks as though they may date from the 1960's. They were manufactured in Japan by Sakura who are still making art products today.  They invented oil pastels in 1924.  Not sure what I'm going to create yet so watch this space....

 

 

 

Hare today

Work in Progress - Falkland Palace

From an eastern perspective

 

There is wonderful architecture in Tokyo; not least the Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Centre designed by Kengo Kuma and completed in 2012.  The centre has a cafe on the top floor from where there are wonderful views of the Tokyo Sky Tree and the Asakusa Shrine, both major tourist attractions in the city.

I did the drawing during my lunch hour today. It took me 45 minutes and was a good way to practise perspective.

Sumo

 

Rainbow Lorikeet

This is drawn from a photo I took at Edinburgh Zoo several years ago. They had an attraction called Rainbow Landings where you could walk among the birds in a large enclosure.  Sadly the attraction closed as it was too expensive to run and the birds had to leave the zoo.

 

 

Whirling Dervish