Sentinels

Japan: Life as Art

shadow, light, outline and nature bent and shaped

Shibuya, Tokyo

Shibuya

Two priceless

London

I was quite taken by Marina Grechanik's drawing process at the Lisbon symposium - I'd always loved her drawings, but like Ea Ejersbo, I loved seeing her work - especially the free use of watercolour pencils. So a whole lot of us learned some lessons from Marina! This sketch was done having a coffee at Carluccio's on St Christopher's Place in London - with its very peculiar and pretty useless fountain.

Watercolour pencil in Stillman & Birn sketchbook

Quickly

I loved Monica and Eduardo's workshop on movement, which was based at Cais de Sodré in Lisbon. My drawings could have been done anywhere, though - I'm now sorry I didn't anchor the figures in space a little more! These are very quick and rough and some of them done without looking at the page. 

Line

Back

Urban Expressionism

Karoo to Free State

Colours

I met a very young woman on my beachside walk this morning, with a small puppy and four children, all delightful.  The puppy was a  Jack Russell, the children were three white, one (adopted) little black girl. The woman and her husband are missionaries from Tennessee. I was impressed by her kindness and openness and tranquility, and the children's friendliness: so many people are either hostile to, or suspicious of, a person whose camera lens cap has been removed. The dog was a darling too.

The other side

The edge of the township of Masiphumelele, very close to the beach villages of Kommetjie and Noordhoek in the Cape. According to Wikipedia, it has approximately 26000 inhabitants. Ameneties are scarce and 30-40% of the inhabitants are infected with HIV/Aids. I'm hesitant about whether to even post this caption, but as photographs tends to objectify and aestheticise, I will risk sounding like an armchair liberal.

Eduardo

Happy birthday Eduardo!  For his big birthday, Eduardo's wife asked his sketchbook buddies to send a page with a drawing to paste into a special birthday sketchbook - what a great idea! Here's my contribution. 

Ink pen, brush marker and watercolour on untitled sketchbook page, torn out and sent for Eduardo's birthday present.

Earlier this year, I was pleased to have been invited to write an essay for the publication of Eduardo's  sketchbook from the time he spent on Cape Verde. It's just seen the light of day in Lisbon :)

Grey day, grey city.

Whereas our nearest town, Stamford (5 miles away) is beautiful and filled with green spaces and Georgian stone architecture, our nearest city - Peterborough - is quite grim and grey, filled with lots of shops and malls that lose their allure to me after about five minutes of enthusiasm at the possible benefits of shopping in a city. There's a wonderful cathedral, though, and I did these drawings at the point where the cathedral close meets the shopping precinct. 

Brush markers (and watercolour washes in the first two) in untitled sketchbook.

One more

from my photographs taken in Israel, Jaffa again. 

Brush marker and watercolour in untitled sketchbook.

More from Israel

Brush markers in untitled sketchbook.

Hot, clear day in Jaffa

I still have so much material I'd like to use in my photographs from Israel, but will stop mining this source when I come to the end of this sketchbook...

Brush markers and watercolours in untitled sketchbook

Buildings in Tel Aviv

More drawings from my photographs.

Brush marker and watercolour in untitled sketchbook.

Remembrance Sunday

The quickest scribbles made watching the Remembrance Day parade at the Cenotaph on TV this morning, which I've watched every year since I came to England (there's a whole article in that, but I won't write it now). Elgar's Nimrod near the beginning is where I got undone, but the quivery lines are just because of how quickly the images on the tv change. I think.

Brush markers (with a touch of watercolour in two of them) in untitled sketchbook.

More from Jerusalem

Brush markers in untitled sketchbook.