Snug

I know it's not a very manly look, but Kato was shivering for a while. Note: that was at home - he doesn't go into the outside world as Cardy Man - there, he is feral beast (or a bit of a lad, actually)!

Brush markers and watercolours in Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook.

Scale

Kato sat next to the big vase of amaryllis which is on the floor...

Brush marker and watercolour in Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook.

Luminous

I'm afraid these have been slightly chaotically busy days before the Christmas break, so not many drawings, or even not any, though I may settle now to an hour's sketching... but here's a photo taken this morning. Of a transparent giraffe's leg...?

Life drawing

Still tidying the studio storage, I also didn't remember these - from a small sketchbook of very quick, watercolour sketches from life. Probably around 1998!

All are watercolour or pencil in watercolour in small, wire-bound watercolour sketchbook.

Then and now

I had a big tidy of my studio store cupboard and found all manner of lost and forgotten things. Not least, a big Seawhite of Brighton sketcbook, begun probably twelve years ago and abandoned after some pages, having been used mostly to jot down ideas and many lists of things. Slipped between a double spread of ideas for titles, none of which I ever used, was a drawing made on tracing paper. There were other sketches of this couple, which I must have drawn at life drawing sessions at the faculty of fine arts where I was teaching at the time, but I liked the way this one let the writing through. 

Pen and ink on tracing paper, on pen in large Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook.

Scarf and gloves

Winter gear - the scarf brightens up my always dark clothes. But the drawing is a disaster. I couldn't find my sketchbook so grabbed a piece of paper in the studio. I was sure it was a pencil crayon sort of drawing that this called for. But as soon as I started, I realised that the pattern on the scarf, which is what attracted me to do the drawing in the first place, was just too fiddly and detailed and that the pencils didn't grip properly, so I changed over to those beloved Faber-Castell Pitt brush pens. I really prefer to do drawings where I'm looking at a general sweep of something and not very finely wrought details. I thought I'd include this because drawing has been thin on the ground these past few days.

Pencil crayons and brush markers on cartridge paper.

Painting upwards or a certain slant of light...

Frozen self