Tombow brushpens

These are the pens I use for my colour drawings when I'm outside. The brush is very pliable and the ink moves well when water is added to the page. They're gorgeous!

Tombow / Product Catalog / Markers and Highlighters / Dual Brush Pen / ABT

London drawings

I've finally discovered the joy of drawing outside, with my bag of felt tips and little sketchbook. There's usually 3 Tombow brush pens and a sketchbook floating around in my handbag because I usually come across something interesting in town.

The first two were done in or around the National Gallery, for the Urban Sketchers 'Sketch Crawl' day in November 2009.

The National Gallery cafe

Mahjong players in Caffe Nero, Covent Garden
A Piccadilly line traveller.

View from Paperchase, Tottenham Court Road.

More TV

These are a couple of small sketches from TV shows, the first is from a drama called The Devil's Whore, and is King Charles I (played by Peter Capaldi), and the second is a bird's eye view of the set for Black Books (maybe the best set in comedy history- its mad and stuffed with chaos).

Sketchbook pages

Here are some random pages from my little sketchbook. I like to colour up my doodling pages to give them some extra vibrancy.

Occupational therapy

Here are two intense pictures done in my parents' garden, while recovering from flu.

More North London coffee stops

Sitting in Caffe Nero, Muswell Hill, with crayons can be a bit embarrassing, but people do give me space...

Caffe Nero again. Top friendly staff, maybe they need to set up a blog... This was an experiment in how could I do a drawing in large brushstrokes, concentrating on the composition. Then I coloured it up in Photoshop in just 4 colours.

Villiers Terrace, Park Road, on the way to Muswell Hill. This started as a pen drawing, then I coloured it in Photoshop later. 40x20cm


Costa, Crouch End. 43x20cm.

John Lennon

This was drawn with PainterX, I was struck by the intimate quality of the photo.

Pear tree screen print idea

My pear tree drawing has been given the screen print treatment, in 4 different styles.

Rotary dryer

This is the sunniest day of the year so far, and I'm fixated on the rotary dryer in the garden.

Spring

The pear tree is about to unfold its blossoms, and I watch it every day. this is a Japanese influenced drawing, 48 x 20cm, brush felt pen on Khadi paper. I'm tempted to keep it as it is, making the marks the main part of the picture, but can't resist doing some watercolour on it though...

Work

This is an early experiment in being more graphic and bold with my work. The scene is my old office at Dorling Kindersley, where I worked as a designer in the Children's 10+ department. The original pen sketch is below.

Drawings of TV dramas

In addition to drawing by hand, I also like to use my computer, and draw portraits of characters from British TV dramas. Here are four for today. They are drawn with a Wacom Tablet and pen, and the application Corel Painter X. I find it immensely satisfying testing out my traditional skills of portraiture and see it as a mental exercise keeping these skills sharp. For people who know the application I use the square pastel tool on top of a light brown background, and do the lighter areas on separate layers. These drawings usually take a day to complete and are 33x33cm at 300dpi.

Rigaud (Andy Serkis), Little Dorrit, BBC TV

First sketch for the painting

Flintwinch (Alun Armstrong), Little Dorrit, BBC TV

Nancy (Sophie Okonedo), Oliver Twist, BBC TV


(N.b. these pictures are not for reproduction and subject matter is the property of BBC)

Lets go to Cardiff...

Some drawings while visiting a friend in Cardiff. The Wales Millennium Centre is my favourite building in Britain, its amazing, beautifully designed, and very striking by the bay. I'm sure there are some more pictures to be done here; they may be etchings or black and white conte drawings. My last visit was in November to see 'Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra', the best night out of the year!

Wales Millennium Centre - Image Gallery

Large scale watercolour on Khadi paper, 66x30cm

Mixed media (ink and Neocolor wax pastels), 40x20cm

Mixed media (ink and Neocolor wax pastels) Bay Cafe, Mermaid Quay, 40x20cm

Going out for a drink?

Are you in the Stroud Green or Crouch End area and fancy a night out? Here are two places, The Old Dairy (Crouch Hill), and Banners Restaurant (Crouch End).

Banners Restaurant

The Old Dairy

saturday afternoon

Hello kids!

here's a new set of drawings, posted after a fab day out talking to artists.

R

La Perla cocktail bar, Maiden Lane, London.

Crouch End (Haslemere Road)

iPod Brushes drawing

This picture was done with Brushes application for iPod and iPhone.

Crouch End, London.

Caffe Nero, Muswell Hill

First images

These are from a sketchbook I started a year ago, and are quite small (32 x 13cm). They are in a Khadi paper sketchbook, which are great for holding watercolour and lots of messy overworking. they also have a lovely crinkly deckle edge, making the pictures more rough and tactile.

The scenes are all from Crouch End, and the media is pen and watercolour.