The following post is adapted from a short talk I gave to first year fine art students at Loughborough University about using sketchbooks. I use sketchbooks on a daily basis to help me make my paintings and maps. They’re a place to plan, play and practice. Work in my sketchbooks is always in beta format
It’s almost a year ago now when I got a call from the BBC asking if I’d be interested in being a hand double for a 1930s costume drama, Mapp and Lucia, to be shown at Christmastime 2014. The ‘hand job’ as it became known, would involve standing in for an actress playing an artist
August in Brighton has been a month of weather contrasts, much warmer than anything I experienced on the Seadragon where we were wrapped in 8 layers of thermals, panic-buy fleeces, tangerine wet weather gear, life jackets and fishermans hats- yet just as varied. Storms. Monsoon rain. Hailstones as big as marbles. Heat to make your
I recently spent a great afternoon at Brighton Festival’s Doodlefest – letting myself doodle, just drawing the other drawers and allowing my mind to wander with no particular purpose. The day was sunny, the rooms rammed but surprisingly calm and I really had the best time. All the doodled postcards were posted onto a wall
I’m still continuing to draw regularly in pubs around Brighton. These images are either in biro or soft pencils – I try not to rub out too much, leaving the original line intact. It differentiates from digital illustration that is so much about perfection – the perfect line, the perfect white – which somehow loses
I spent a long weekend at End of the Road Festival – hipster hangout, lumberjack chic everywhere you look, the cider bus and some great music. The sun shone hard in the middle of the Dorset countryside so there are lots of sketches of people wearing hats and coping with too much heat and alcohol!
More drawing in the pub for a break while I worked on “Imposter” and “Moon Map” which are both for upcoming exhibitions. I’m looking at creating a series of work using these drawings as inspiration but just haven’t had the time yet…For more information about drawing in the pub, visit here.
Another pencil drawing from my sketchbook of almost weekly sessions in local pubs. Not sure what that says about me really! Brighton has a huge number of pubs per capita ranging from the cheesy to the traditional to the uber-modern. My favourites are the slightly dingy, down at heel, sit in a dark corner on
I’ve been drawing various views of UK pub life again in Brighton. The Victory, named after Nelson’s ship at the Battle of Trafalgar, is a beautiful old pub close to Brighton’s North Laine with lots of old posters and ship paraphanalia for me to get my drawing teeth into – there’s even a cat’o’ninetails on
Another Tuesday evening of drawing at the pub! I really enjoyed drawing in the Cricketers in Brighton, a properly old school pub with red flock wall paper, antique prints, dark wood and the odd satanic-looking stuffed deer head hanging on the wall.
