20th- 21st February

20th and 21st February

Just a short post today...

17th- 19th February: Tunnelbana station, Brother No 3 and the first outdoor sketch of the year.

17th February: I had to go to the gigantic blue and yellow swedish shop on Friday... this was while waiting at the station on the way there.

18th February: making an animation for (and of) Brother No. 3

19th February, Riddarholmskyrkan. As I walked home today I realised two things: it wasn't dark at ten to five, and it was (just) above freezing and not too cold to stop and do a quick sketch. Hurrah!

14th- 16th February

14th February

15th February: continuing the expanding drawings- this one is very small

16th February: enlarged sections taken from drawings using a photo of garden plants as reference.

13th February: lifedrawing- or krokis in Sweden

13th February: using parallel pen

13th February: using ordinary pen (noodler's flex)

The first life drawing I've been to so far this year, at Tellus Bio.
I discovered a perfect combination last night: this very thin paper, which has become a favourite for lifedrawing anyway- a bit like brown tissue paper, it's sold as packing paper for moving house- and a Pilot parallel pen. The pen is very wide but can be used either on the wide bit or on the narrow edge, and on most paper it's a bit rough and awkward. But on this super-thin paper (which has one shiny side) it glides beautifully, the ink flows, it twists easily from thin to thick... a delightful experience! Plus the ink goes through the paper a bit so you get interesting traces on the next page. Perfect.

11th- 12th February: continuous lines carry on... and a carved wooden monster.

Saturday 11th February: continuing the continuous line drawings (ha!)... well, almost continuous anyway- and still expanding whichever way they want to go.

A fantastic carved figurehead at Sjöhistoriska Museet- the Maritime History Museum- in Stockholm. It's enormous, and mounted on the wall so that this is what you see when you go up the stairs- imaginative displaying!

Also from Sunday 12th- I whipped out my sketchbook as we finished a hot chocolate/ coffee in the museum cafe. Then playing around with the scan in gimp I rather liked the effect of enlarging a small section. 

8th- 10th February: expanding drawings!

8th February

9th February

10th February

This week I've been working on drawings on multiple sheets of paper; starting with a single piece, and adding more in whichever direction seems interesting as the thing develops. 8th and 9th are from the local library- I had to go back again to complete it- and are now both part of an eight-piece drawing which (for the moment) defeats me at scanning and posting it all together at a reasonable size... 10th February is from the (Swedish) National Museum's design collection. They very helpfully have strategically positioned chairs which you are allowed to sit on - quite funny in a room of museum object chairs and they don't look all that different. Interesting though how your view is shaped by availability of somewhere to sit- all the angles rejected because they didn't have a chair in front of them.

7th February: a drawing over several pieces of paper...

7th February: working outwards from the centre, and adding new pieces as needed. I like this way of working as you don't run out of space if one direction ends up being more interesting than the others- you just tape an extra piece (or pieces) of paper on. More of these to come over the next week or so- it could become addictive! The only problem is the scanning afterwards.

1st- 6th February: 28 Days Later Drawing Challenge

This month I'm taking part in the 28 Days Later February Drawing Challenge and posting a drawing each day to its facebook group page. Hundreds of people are involved, and it's been fantastic to see so many drawings every day so far this month. It's such an immediate format and there are so many other drawings to see that it can't help but influence your own drawing...

1st February

2nd February: Dear bicycle, I promise to take you out of the bag and rebuild you soon...

3rd February

4th February: keeping the pen moving while watching a film. It made me look at it very differently- and this particular film- Alexander Nevsky- was full of striking landscape scenes and lots of cleverly set up black and white contrasts.

5th February

6th February: along the lines of 'taking a line for a walk'.

28th- 31st January

28th January: Saturday

29th January: a new small sketchbook- and a rare foray into pencil drawing of buildings

30th January

31st January

25th- 27thJanuary: blue light and beetles...

25th Januray: early morning blue light

26th January: there was so much exciting stuff to draw at the Swedish Natural History Museum that I had to go back by myself with sketchbook and pens. Found I was strangely fascinated by this box of beetles- I felt compelled to keep focusing on the biggest, brownest, ugliest ones which made me shudder, until I forgot what they were and just enjoyed drawing them. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere...

Another from 26th January: this little creature was the coolest- and weirdest thing- and the name even better. If you click on the image you should be able to see the writing more clearly.

27th January: first part of a series using an old pop-up telephone directory.

22nd- 24th January: polar birds, a Derek Jarman film and some technical-ish drawing

22nd January: quick sketches at Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet- Swedish Natural History Museum. This was in the arctic and antarctic galleries. Funny to then see these creatures on Frozen Planet...

23rd January

24th January: I've begun working my way through a book on perspective and isometric drawing. Very different to my usual work, but learning some useful things. I think.