‘What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.’ The words of Welsh poet William Henry Davies often come into my mind when I am poised with a pen and a sketchbook. Whether in the midst of a breath taking landscape or the bustle of a busy railway station, sketching in public is all about standing and looking.

We all know the importance of ‘looking’ as an essential part of drawing practice but, unlike the life room, when out doors our concern is for capturing  a sense of place with all its interesting intricacies: a moment in time, a smell, a weather condition. As artists we are privileged to be able to leave the exact capturing of detail to the cameraman and indulge ourselves in the recording our own personal response.

I nearly always sketch in pen for the exact reason that you cannot rub it out of fiddle with it. This allows you to become less precious about representational accuracy and allows your sketches to become more responsive, plus you don’t have to carry an eraser. I often use water fast, fine tip liners as I can brush watercolour over the top without the ink running, however, any pen will do – biro gives a lovely quality of line and old fashioned fountain pens will give a line that transforms into beautiful tonal washes with just a touch of water.

Paper wise I generally use a reasonable weight watercolour paper (140lb rough) or a good quality cartridge paper but again don’t miss an opportunity through lack of resource  – I have sketches on paper bags, serviettes and till receipts.

Sometimes it can be difficult to find a starting point within the seemingly infinite subject matter that the public domain offers. Choose something that interests you as your central point and work outwards – don’t get bogged down with composition, you can crop or expand it later – it can be a vista or a row of flowerpots. Whilst accuracy is not essential it is still important to look for relationships, angles and negative space and if your picture includes buildings keep the rules of basic perspective in mind.

Put things in or take things out, move things around – remember it is your visual record of a sense of place.

Vary the complexity of the sketch according to circumstances: if you are stood on a headland in driving rain you may want to note a few landmarks, if you sat in the shade on a summer’s day then a detailed sketch may be more fitting.

Remember, sketches don’t have to be finished, although it is a good idea to date and label them. You and others will enjoy looking at them in years to come.

Finally, never be irritated or embarrassed when passers-by want to see what you are doing for it is a pleasure to watch an artist sketch. As artists, we should feel privileged to be in a position to oblige.

The next date for sketching and painting outdoors will be on Saturday 29th June in the beautiful walled gardens at Brockhampton. See courses for further details

This was the first session of our summer term and a way of easing ourselves into this enjoyable but demanding part of art practice the beginning of the session was slightly different to usual.

Tim our amazing life model held the same pose, against a blue screen for 45 minutes. Members of the class were given the task of completing three drawings of approximately 15 minutes each.

The first was to study the outline of the model and the ‘negative’ shapes that his body formed.

The second drawing was to be completed using straight lines only, no curves! Kirstie chose to work with white chalk on black paper (recycled from her Arches watercolour pads no less!).

The third and final drawing was to be made by starting with a mid tone charcoal base and using a rubber to carve out the lighter areas in the model before adding charcoal to get the dark tones.

At our tea break we had a wonderful catch up chat discussing the latest exhibitions and generally putting the art world to rights. In particular this week the ‘Artist’s Statement’ came under review. A difficult one for all artists who wish to appear both intellectually cerebral and approachable at the same time. My thanks goes to Alan for his constructive criticism of mine!

The second half of the session concentrated on one pose with a short study of hands to conclude.  If you are interested in life drawing but the thought of taking part terrifies you then do get in touch and I will find away to get you started.

Monotypes and mono prints are viewed, in the art world, as unique images.

A monotype is a print whereby the image has been created each time and there is no reusable matrix.

A mono print differs in that it has a common underlying matrix with other prints but it differs in terms of colour or finish.

There are lots of different ways of producing monotypes and I like to use it as a process of mark making to construct a visual work. The images above shows the acetate used over several inking applications with the image in the process of emerging. The second image  shows and a negative print taken from the final acetate.

I often combine several base resource materials such as leaves and flowers together with sketches of my own. I use the printing process itself in a painterly fashion often working with different elements over a period of time before reaching a result I am happy with.

Interestingly, the negative transparencies that evolve form images of their own with a different quality to the finished print (shown below). 

The two finished prints form part of The Marks We Leave Behind  collection of work. They can be seen in detail on the Gallery Page