What I did last year...

Of course I did draw all year, but then didn't blog.... so here is a brief summary of the outings that didn't get blogged...

July / August was a two week holiday to Scotland with my family. Travelling and sketching with non sketching family and a lively nephew provided a challenge that I'm not used to. Squeezing sketching in often involved - 'I will meet up with you later' but led to a chilled holiday with plenty of nice sketches.

These two are of Bass Rock off the coast of North Berwick; North Berwick has the Scottish Seabird Centre where they have live cameras on the four or so rocky islands where all the seabirds such as puffins and gannets nest and breed. The surface of Bass rock is light coloured; initially I thought it was just a light coloured rock, or even sunlight, but having looked through the binoculars you realise that it is home to over 150,000 nesting Gannets and that light is actually every space being occupied by a gannet pair, their nest and chicks. One of the other rocky islands has been subject to an invasive species of plant that covered the puffin's nesting burrows. Fortunately, after a population crash, volunteers are clearing it and the puffins are recovering. So if you are in the area - well worth a visit to support their important work.

The Scottish Air Museum have one of the Concorde in their collection. I had always wanted to see one, and having seen inside, I didn't realise how tiny and cramped they were. More comfort on a budget airline these days. I took the opportunity to draw it in my toned grey sketchbook to emphasise the white fuselage and was happier to get the shape accurately.

This one below, was drawn from the wall of Fort George near Inverness. The little strip of colour was in bright sunlight while the rest was very much monochrome. I enjoyed just drawing the panoramas while in Scotland. This was done in a Handbook waterolour book.

August - Salford Quays.... and a new technique from Steve Reddy's Craftsy course. The use of ink washes and grisaille layers although I never got to the colour bit until 3 months later. This suited the ink washes too. This is the Imperial War Museum of the North.

Early September was a trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I had missed the Yorkshire Urban Sketchers Group outing in August as I had been on holiday, and I was determined to see the Henry Moore Sculptures. This was the second use of the Grisaille technique and at this point it was helping me see tone rather than getting bogged down in colour. The picture below I realise now needed figures to give it a sense of scale.

A warm sunny afternoon made it a wonderful weekend and of course - Scribbles the Bunny came with me.

Manchester Airport in September with the Manchester Urban Sketchers... and it was warm and dry for a change. I picked a plane that wasn't flying to draw as moving objects are hard! Again I felt the challenge of drawing, but I'm finding if I go away and then look at a drawing later, I can appreciate it more than at the time I'm drawing. This means I'm less likely to reject the drawings that initially don't appear to work.

I did enjoy watching all of us trying to photograph our work - wonderful time was had by all.