22nd- 25th April: a new sketchbook

This latest sketchbook is filled entirely with very thin tissue paper- brown mostly, with some white here and there. I realised that sketchbooks are a very good way to structure experimenting with different ways of drawing, depending on the paper, the size and so on.  Making myself a tissue paper one means that while it lasts, I draw mostly in pen on crinkly paper. And when it's finished, I make something else. It doesn't last for ever, so I can be happy with using one or two methods/media for the moment, knowing that the next one will be completely different. Or that's the theory anyway...

22nd April: ok, this one's obviously not from the crinkly paper sketchbook. Quick heads from the tv.

23rd April: Västra Skogen T-bana station, after a St George's Day run (scanning wrinkles being the downside to tissue paper...)

24th April: Södermalm Alle

25th April: this sparrow has taken to sitting on our window sill and chirping. Trying to creep up quietly and get close enough to draw him is becoming a bit of a game.

21st April: Stockholm Sketchcrawl

Stockholm Mosque

An interesting corner next to the mosque.

Much-needed warming up in the cafe afterwards.

Saturday was Sketchcrawl day again- and now a year since I first went on one. This time, a group of 8 sketchers met up on Götgatan- braving the chilly wind- and managed an hour outside around Björns Trädgården, before warming our cockles in the cafe in Söderhallarna. Where of course we proceded to make an exhibition of ourselves (in a quiet sketchers' kind of way) by drawing everything in sight. To see what everyone else drew, have a look at the Sketchcrawl website:
http://www.sketchcrawl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=7797
and there are also posts there from sketchers around the world on the same day.

17th- 20th April

17th April: sitting on a hill in the park

18th April: aspirational... Maybe one day I will be able to produce a sound that sounds like a musical note rather than a screetch! In the meantime, I'll continue to draw the violin rather than inflict it on the neighbours.

19th April: part of an experimental series of body-by-touch, built up in layers. The charcoal is based on trying to feel the bones, pencil over the top represents skin/ muscle.

20th April: I really can't stand this sketch, (can you tell?) but it's the only one I did that day. Funny how some just make you recoil- I absolutely hate it, and for no real reason other than it's just not any good...

11th- 16th April

11th April: enlargement of a drawing-from-a-painting, just to make things sound complicated.

12th April: paraphernalia for the camping stove which needed fixing.

13th April: a beautiful old coffee grinder in an old-fashioned cafe.

14th April: snow again, and enjoying using graphite and chalk on brown tissue paper.

15th April: Sunday afternoon cake baking is becoming a habit.

16th April: krokis at a new place- Mäster Olofsgården in Gamla Stan. I liked the way that they did a big variety of timed poses, including half an hour of super-short ones (this is one of them). Two minutes, or maybe even one.

6th- 10th April 2012

6th April

7th April

8th April: quick keep-the-pen-moving sketches while watching tv. A programme about a hovercraft used in Canada on frozen rivers (well ok, five minutes of it- and this is about 2 minutes' worth of drawing...)

9th April: Easter Monday trip to Tyresta National Park

10th April: the self-portraits are gradually becoming more recogniseable, though I still need to work on mood... (On the other hand, maybe I do actually look that grumpy while doing them.)

2nd- 5th April

New super-low resolution images now, having discovered I'd got to the end of the blogger storage limit. This also means that I've got to go back and reduce the size of (at least some of) the photos I'd merrily uploaded in a massive format- and as a result the blog posts won't be in chronological order any more. So please excuse the higgeldy piggeldyness which may result... maybe it's good a chance to see some old posts again (if I can avoid cringeing at them too much...)

2nd April 2012

3rd April: it's not all that clear here, but these are drawings on perspex/ glass, working out perspective in the top ones, attempting to create a layered effect by drawing on two surfaces- glass and paper behind- in the bottom one.

4th April: a similar thing, using tracing paper this time. I'm interested in the way that if you have a tonal image with a linear image on top of it, in certain cases the linear one seems to float on top of the tonal one and your eye swings backwards and forwards between them so that it looks like one is in a 3-d space behind the other. I'm not sure it works all that well here, but they're the day's drawings anyway.

5th April: a straightforward tonal sketch. I've only recently 'got' tonal drawing, I'm sure living in a entirely white-painted flat with lots of windows has had something to do with it.

31st March- 1st April: spring flowers and a toaster

31st March: beautiful spring flowers. 'Easter lillies' is the literal translation of their Swedish name; it seems quite appropriate really-  suddenly they're everywhere here.

1st April: the trusty toaster (toast and nutella is the toaster-related favourite at the moment)

26th- 29th March

26th March: final krokis session at Tellus Bio. They don't start again there until the autumn, so it was a bit sad to realise I won't be going back there.

27th March: symbolic of all the cycling to come over the next few months.

28th March: a sudden- and as it turned out, sadly brief- warming up of the weather meant that it was possible to sit outside and draw. These 1960s (?) flats just beside Tantolunden park sit on top of a hill and, from the other side, look out across the lake, trees and the southwest of the city. Not a bad view, I should think!

29th March: Day 2 of lunchtime outdoor drawing, brought to an abrupt end by a rather nasty hailstorm. Oh well.

22nd- 25th March: Now I know this first one may look a little startling, but don't be alarmed...

22nd March: ...it's just the result of mixing tonal drawing and blind contour lines.

23rd March: similar thing, less alarming results

24th March: a bit odd, drawing someone else's foot by touch.

25th March: and a piece of cake after all that.