Rounding Off February

February bows out with some lovely sunny days. Warm enough for me to actually step outside to draw, instead of huddling in the coffee shops and library. Yesterday, I drew for half an hour in City Park in the centre of Bradford. The sunshine was warm enough for a few brave and hardy people to be wandering around in t-shirts. I kept my jacket on. It was lovely after some of the grey chill days we've had lately, but I need a bit more heat before I start shedding layers.

City Park in the Sunshine

This is the basic sketch. I may add some colour to it if I have the time and the inclination. If so, I'll post the results.

I've been a little busy for too much sketching, so I'm going to post a couple of photos I took earlier this month at Shipley Glen. It was fantastically sunny, but very cold. Definitely more of a photography day than a drawing one.

 Tree at Shipley Glen

Rocks and Roots

Tomorrow is the beginning of a new month, and a new creative adventure for me. I'm starting a course at Hive in Shipley called Angels and Acrobats. It's going to involve figure drawing (which I do lot of already), making ceramic figures (which will be completely new), and then raku firing them. Now I've done some raku firing before a couple of years ago, at Hive with Rachel. It was one day a week for four weeks, with a gap in the middle to biscuit fire the pieces. I really enjoyed it (if I can find them, I'll post some images of the pieces I made).

I'm really excited about this new venture. I signed up for the course back in August, and have been anticipating it ever since. I'll put up some photos of the process in future posts.

Workshops and Life Drawing

At the back end of last week I had a splurge of arty activity, which meant I had to spend Sunday catching up with mundane tasks that I had happily shoved to one side.

On Friday, I went along to the pop up gallery in Shipley Underground Market that has been set up by Hive. I took part in a workshop around hexagons run by a good friend, Gill Smith (of Ceramicals blog). As it was half term, Hive had been running a number of different workshops open to all, but mainly aimed at local children. I made a hexagon, but then I got my small sketchbook out as the opportunity to sketch was too good to miss. Everyone was so absorbed in their creations.

At the Pop Up Gallery

Hive is an organisation trying to make as many connections between creativity and the community as possible. Their base in Shipley has a number of workshops covering different media like ceramics, woodwork and textiles. Here they run a number of creative courses, and provide a space for people to use the facilities on a drop in basis.

Every other Saturday there is a life drawing session called The Saturday People in Leeds at the Swarthmore Centre. I've been attending it for a number of years (I used to model for them as well), although recently other life stuff has got in the way. I've been making the effort to get myself back into the habit, and attended this last session for the afternoon rather than the whole day.

Portrait of Susan

The model for this session was art and fitness educator, Susan Ross (another very good friend). The afternoon was set up for one hour long drawing, where I tackled a challenging foreshortened view, followed by some shorter poses. I've been working on portraits recently, so I decided to use a thirty minute poses to try a portrait.

New Sketching Technique

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm a big fan of the Urban Sketchers organisation. I love the whole idea of encouraging people to draw, to use the world around them as their subject matter, and to share what they see. It's a way of helping people to really see the world around them. When you try to draw something you have to really look at it, and if you do it enough that habit spreads out beyond just your drawing.

I love the sketches of many of the Urban Sketchers, too many to list here, but today I wanted to mention the sketches of one of the London sketchers, Adebanji Alade. He is a professional artist (not all Urban Sketchers are), and his main area of interest is drawing and painting people. Recently he started a blog, Inspired to Sketch with Adebanji Alade which has some fantastic tips and advice on sketching people on location. He's got some great videos showing how to apply these techniques. If you are at all interested in this, do go and have a look.

For years I've been trying to sketch people in coffee shops and other public places and had some okay results, but a lot of so-so ones. Mainly, I think, because I wasn't getting the information down quickly enough. Over the past couple of days I've been giving it a go with Adebanji's advice, and suddenly there's been one of the step changes that I dream about in my work.

Thank you Adebanji.

At Costa Coffee in Shipley

So this was my first try on Wednesday, and I was pleased with the results. The trouble with coffee shops is that people don't tend to stay very long. So the next day I tried the library.

At the Library

At libraries people stay longer, and they don't move much because they are reading.

Quick Catch Up

It's been a busy few days, so I haven't had time to fit in much drawing. I do have a sketch in my moleskin to post; a view out of my front room window.

Window View With Radio

Here a couple of images that I took in the snow last month. Some of my classes had been cancelled due to the snow, so I put on some old ski pants and my thermals and went to a local park to take some shots.

Trees in Snow

Tree Tops

Hey, the Weather Has Suddenly Changed!

What a surprise. Heavy snow on Wednesday to sunshine the very next day. These next two sketches were done in Shipley on consecutive days. The first one was from inside Costa Coffee to stay out of the weather. By the next day, it was warm enough for me to draw outside.

Shipley in the Snow

Now the Snow Has Gone

I'm a big fan of the Urban Sketchers. If you haven't heard of them and you are interested in sketching and drawing, go check out their website at urbansketchers.org. A big part of their manifesto is about sketching on location. Their slogan is 'Show the World, One Drawing at a Time'. Now, not all of my drawing is on location drawing from life. I do like to working all kinds of ways. But there is nothing like observational drawing for honing your skills. I try to do some every day. Now the weather is starting to improve, I'm hoping to get out and about to do more sketches.

A Snowy Day in Bradford

A snowy day in Bradford is a perfect time to be kicking things off on my blog. I've been taking a few photos of the way the snow can change Bradford into something a bit more sparkling than it's usual grey aspect.

Snow and Chimneys

Writing a blog that features my photographs and other artwork is a very good way to motivate myself to be more productive

A Sunnier Day

Photography is not my only creative outlet. I've worked in various media with varying levels of skill. My past work includes jewellery and other forms of creative metalwork; different printing techniques, including etching and screen printing; and ceramics. If I had to choose out of all the creative areas I work in, I'd say drawing is my favourite. Anything from a quick sketch to a long detailed, carefully rendered drawing can make me feel happy.

Here are a few different examples:

Still Life - Boots

A Quick Sketch in the Coffee Shop

Contour Drawing of Black Cat

As you can see my cat doesn't stay still for very long when I'm trying to draw her. No matter how deeply asleep she appears, as soon as I take out a sketch book and a pencil, she's off!