Drawings
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Cologne at Night
It seems that almost everywhere you look in Cologne you can see the twin towers of the cathedral and the glass roof of the main train station. Of course there are places from which neither landmark is visible, but there don’t seem to be as many such places as one might expect. So, true to…
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Wat Mahathat, Ayutthaya
Ayutthaya Historical Park in Thailand contains a large complex of ruined temple buildings. We saw them in the early evening, at a time when the lower position of the sun gave a deep warm glow to the brickwork and created many interesting shadows. Ignoring the wonderful colours of the evening light, I used a simple…
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Spotlight
This is my first attempt to draw on black paper. I used a white pen, so one might imagine that the approach is basically the reverse of the more normal black-pen-on-white-paper drawing skills that I have been honing. So for example, the pen has to mark highlights rather than shadows. It turns out that things…
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Monkey Warrior
The Grand Palace in Bankok contains many amazing sights and some wonderfully intricate buildings. During our visit my eye was particularly caught by several of the statues, and in particular by these monkey (or demon?) warriors that support two enormous chedi, or stupa. This drawing is a close up of one of these characters, one…
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Avenue of Trees
Another drawing from Ichi-Coo Park, this one from a visit made last summer, when the weather was dry enough that we were able to sketch in the open. The park has many dramatic perspectives, and this one funnels towards a fantastic set of wrought iron gates, although they are rather lost in this sketch as…
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Cart (dilapidated)
This cart is to be found in the delightfully named Ichi-Coo Park on the Surrey/Sussex border. Our trip to that park today was made in typical English summer weather (i.e. it was raining) so our “en plein air” art session risked turning into “plein d’eau”! However, I noticed that a few dilapidated carts had been…
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St Peter’s College
Many, many years ago I was a student here. The college buildings are not stereotypical for an Oxford college, but then the college was only founded in 1929, so a series of gothic quads would be a bit of a surprise! In fact, many of the buildings shown here were built or rebuilt since my…
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Wrist (&) Watch
My wrist, and my watch, cartoon style. This was an interesting exercise in drawing shiny things (watch) and hairy things (wrist). Given that the drawing app allows you several goes at getting something right if necessary, I have iterated to a version of the drawing that looks okay, and hopefully learnt something about appropriate technique…
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Seashell Weekly
Having discovered that I can use my drawing app to “enhance” existing drawings (see Reigate Priory or Brushes for example) I am now tempted to repeat this trick on a great pile of scribbles and sketches that I have accumulated. However, I am just about wise enough to realise that unless my reworking of these…
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Bruges Station
Bruges is well known for its pretty old buildings and canals. However, few who have visited the city other than by train will realise just how modern by comparison the station is. Of course the station is not brand new – rather it is modernist, with lines that are very straight and clean, the building…
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Canons Ashby – Book Room
Canons Ashby was a bit of a find. We were looking for a place to stop for lunch on a journey up north that wasn’t a motorway service station, and so decided to see what the National Trust had to offer. The manor house at Canons Ashby was perfect – conveniently situated and a haven…
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Kanazawa Castle
Castles in Japan are both quite different and very similar to those I am used to back home (in England). So for example, they have moats, big thick stone walls and slits through which to fire at anyone who is attacking the castle, just as I imagine castles must have almost anywhere in the world.…
Doodling ... 