Charcoal Sketching

 There is something very tactile about charcoal, and messy. It takes you back to school days and if you are brave and don't mind a bit of mess then it's an ideal sketching tool. 

In this intro video I show the basics of using charcoal. 

Jurassic afternoon stroll

Royal Brompton Incarceration Sketch tour 2012 (5 of 5)

Having signed my life away to the Foulis ward register and promised not to return drunk and be back in time for tea I hit the streets of Old London Town in search of adventure and Dinosaurs at the natural history museum where I was promised history would come alive by there website…

I have to day that the experience did take me back in time…to school day trips. There were lots of school kids running about making fun of the animatronics. Trying to find innuendo in all the items of the cleverly placed gift shop at the end of the dinosaur exhibit.

So the next sketch is the Dinosaur in the main hall of the Natural history museum.

Walking back to the hospital it occurred to me that there are a lot of mopeds in London and I stopped to draw them – completely missing the opportunity to draw the Row of Boris Battery Bikes.

I worked up the original sketch into the following finished painting.

On of the things I tried to find in the urban London jungle was hidden beauty – I think I found it in the run down garages in a side street off of Cromwell Road. I was particularly struck by the bright green doors at the end of the alley way.

 

Find more like these…

Ode to a good cup of coffee served in a good cup of coffee cup

Royal Brompton incarceration sketch tour – A decent cup of coffee (3 of 5)

The ‘coffee/tea, please’ people come around the hospital about 4 times a day. Like a good pub after about 3 days in hospital they get to know your drinks order – coffee, white, 2 sugars in my case. Ironically for the Royal Brompton hospital that prides itself on award winning food – Maxwell house is the blend of choice for the NHS and not my particular cup of tea. I think this is because it comes in paper cups and cuts out a lot of the faffing around with tea spoons.

My favourite cup of coffee usually arrived just after breakfast at about 9:15. Three hours later than I am used to – I was an unusual patient as I was up, showered and dressed by 8. This took the attention of 1 doctor who took asked me on one occasion why I got up so early as the rest of his patients were asleep. I explained when you have a 18 month old baby there are two 6 o’clocks in every day… – Anyway my favourite cup of coffee arrived in an orange china cup complete with saucer.

Ironically I can’t draw ellipses and so this post about a decent cup of coffee relies on some dodgy drawings of NHS cutlery.

 

Initial Sketch completed in hospital.

Charcoal sketch to help create a finished painting.

 

Finished watercolour of the NHS orange cup of coffee.

 

Paper cup of Maxwell house designed to leave you wanting more…

Finally I have been experimenting with ipad sketching.

Limbering up idea

Had an adventurous evening with the Woodley and Earley arts group on Thursday evening, rather than sitting watching a demonstration we had a workshop with Dee Carrol. This comprised of making chalk and charcoal pictures of movement. As it turned out it was a valuable lesson in observation. It was so good that I had another attempt at home with my conte crayons that I have been looking for an excuse to use. You can get some great pictures of people doing actions in the sports pages of the newspapers or buy online at fotolio.com