Shutters are opened, dust sheets removed and fresh flowers put in vases. This blog is open again.

It is the Summer Holidays, although being in England that does not always guarantee summer weather. The end of June was blisteringly hot, but of course, as soon as school finished the weather became ‘changeable’. Never mind. The roses have been brilliant this year, the skies are endlessly beautiful and interesting, and each day out is an adventure as long as you have both sunscreen and an umbrella.

I have lots to show you over the next few posts; experiments with gouache, sketches of colleagues and students, and my trip to beautiful Donegal in the north of Ireland. So let’s get on!

Waiting room sketches are fun to do, you can never be sure how long you have to draw the victim model. The first two sketches were done with my Platinum Carbon pen with a fine nib.  l love the fine line, but I find that it tends to leak ink over my fingers if it is shaken up in my bag too much. It is more of a desk pen.

It’s weird, just looking at this drawing makes me want to yawn with them.

The trusty Uniball eye, always gives dependable waterproof results (on the right) but I must watch out for the occasional sketch done with a Lamy Safari using soluble ink (on the left).

This Sketchbook is an A5 Seawhite of Brighton one. I was unhappy at first because I was turning out a higher proportion of reallybadwhyareyouanartistanyway? unsatisfactory pages than usual :

 

But AS ALWAYS practice makes perfect, and sometimes I turn out a drawing like this one done at Speech Day whilst these parents watched their lovely children perform songs,

or this one of one of my favourite students which captures him and pleases my heart.

It is  tempting to post loads of images in one go, but I am shy of boring you… How soon would you like to see my next post? Tomorrow? Next week? Let me know your thoughts.