From my sketchbook now and then

I've been trying to get out and sketch a bit more recently. London is looking as impressive as ever and I'm loving some of the new buildings cropping up such as The Cheese Grater squeezed in between The Ghurkin and the iconic Lloyds building.

Closer to home I stopped off at the South Bank Centre. Had a great view of the Hayward Gallery The Martin Creed exhibition was on which involved huge interactive installations including a room full of balloons...

These are obviously quick iPad sketches but this week, whist 'tidying' I came across one of my earlier drawings (2004). This one took significantly longer. It's a view of the Rodin Museum garden in Paris which is possibly my favourite museum outside the UK.

If Seville was a Pantone...

The thing that hit me straight away when I arrived in Seville apart from the heat, was the colour. Everything was so intense. The cloudless sky helps but Seville has its own colour scheme. I took loads of photos and as I scrolled through them on my computer when I got home I saw its colour stream through every photo. Here is a random selection to show what I mean.

Two overwhelming colours of Seville are a golden yellow and a deep blood red. In Pantone terms, which is generally how I like to think when it comes to colour, Seville is:

Pantone 1235* 

Pantone 180*

[*apologies for obvious lack of colour reproduction on screen!]

These colours are clearly reflected in Spanish culture, especially Andalucia and Seville in particular. The yellow is the sun, the opulence of gold in the thousands of Catholic churches, the stone and architecture, the oranges and all varieties of rich golden sherry. The red is the fiery passion and 'duende' seen during flamenco dances and flamboyant costumes, the blood spilled by the toro during the bull fighting season and the relentless intense heat. And of course the Spanish flag, I now realise, is red and yellow for good reason. An impressive place full of inspiration. I'm really falling for Spain.

Back to life drawing

In a bid to escape being stuck to a computer for most of my day, I've decided to get back to my drawing roots and have joined a life drawing class. There is something refreshingly primal about life drawing. 

Charcoal - paper - nude - DRAW 

I was a bit late and the session was in progress when I stumbled in, tripping over stools, trying to plonk myself on the first available chair that would cause least disruption, faffing around with paper, drawing board, apologising and scrabbling in my cycle bag for my new box of charcoal (newly bought from an art shop that brought back nostalgic memories of first term at art school) sweating as it was boiling - fan heater belting out to keep the model warm, fine charcoal - paper - nude....PANIC. 

Two things: 

1 - ohmygodthereisafithungnakedmanstandingtwofeetawayfromme

2-  ohmygodIcan'tdraw 

I don't care what anyone says - those two things (or variations of) will cross a newby life drawer's mind before charcoal touches the paper. But a deep breath and a series of 5 minute poses focused me and I racked my brain for the rules of proportion I'd learned at art college. 

It wasn't a disaster, moderately happy with a few drawings but I loved it. It's good to empty your head of daily dross and focus on something creative. I'll be back.

  

Watson's Toffee

Not many people know this but I have been perfecting a sea salt caramel toffee recipe over the last few years. I first made a batch in 2011 which I found in some dog eared back issue of Good Food magazine. 

Never ever to this day have I ever produced a batch that looked remotely like the picture in the magazine but what I did discover was that sugar, butter, cream and golden syrup are made to be together. Add a pinch of Malden sea salt and ...

                           BINGO!
                                      #confectionary heaven.


I've had many orders and filled armfuls of kilner jars and this Christmas, sorry to spoil the surprise friends/family, I'll be giving out my 2013 vintage. This year, I discovered edible glitter - YAY! 

But as well as creating a toffeetastic taste sensation I'm enjoying creating the brand. Its still in the early stages but my christmas batch is going to looking something like this.

a bit retro with a hint of pop art. 

Fancy trying a festive toffee for yourself? Drop me an email and I can pop a pack in the post.

Happy Christmas!

Two things...

I've been a bit busy. Um. But I have two things to share.

One:

The Serpentine Pavillion. 

Designed, this year, by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. It's inspiring and fun and clever and moving and I liked it. Go and sit in it and walk over it and run through it. It's only there till Oct 20th.

Two:

Did another quick iPad scrawl. Not finished but has shades of Mr McGregors garden.

More iPad sketches

I'm really enjoying this iPad app and I am back sketching regularly. Well, much more than I was. This is the result of a trip to Borough Market.

Love the way the transparency of the glass seemed to work. Now that I have a stylus I could experiment with type. There is quite a bit of work being carried out at the market at the moment and I hope they don't get rid of this classic old entrance sign.

A bit further down the street is one of my favourite shops...

 So I really wanted to get that iconic logo recognisable and the joy of iPad sketchbook is ...undo...undo...undo...etc. To be honest it took about 5 goes and its not perfect but its close enough. Not finished yet and I'll get back to it shortly.

I wonder if there is a market for an iPad easel??

*click>google>click*

yup

iPad on easel

Oh, now this gives me an idea...back soon...

iPad as a sketchbook?

One of my new year resolutions was to start an iPad sketchbook. Back in the day I may have said I would fill a sketchbook but a digital sketchbook is...well...endless.

First task was to find the right app.

The first one I downloaded was Art Set. It was free although now seems to be £0.69. I  wasn't expecting much and started using it for playing hangman with my friends on the plane to Mykonos last summer. However, I did take it a bit more seriously when I used it to paint my first picture. I was pretty impressed. It takes a bit of time getting used to the brushes, the finger pressure and the clever/odd way the colours mix but I really started to enjoy it and the result wasn't too dreadful. In fact it was far better than had I been using oils on canvas. And a lot less messy.

Being able to 'undo' a brush stroke is just genius although in the end I did that less and less as I saw how the colours mixed and merged to create some interesting results.

On the downside, the app design is pretty drab and clunky. Trying to find a new bit of paper, change colour, texture is a bit of an ordeal but there is lots to choose from. 

I would certainly recommend this app for a beginner iPad painter.

But what I was really looking for was to turn my iPad into a sketchbook. Recently I've noticed a couple of very neat apps popping up and my favourite by far is Paper. First off, its beautifully designed and bases its sketchbook visuals on the Moleskin design. Very user friendly, simple tools (only one comes free with the app - the others you need to buy) really satisfying watercolour textures, the pens write beautifully so you actually can use this in a sketchbook style. I took it to work and sketched a few logo ideas:

And I really started to put it too the test with some sketches from photos that I took of London over the last couple of weeks.

This one of the Gherkin was done just with my finger and although it lacks quite a bit of detail it was quick and it still manages to get the essential detail of the buildings. 

Then I thought...its time for a stylus. So I bought a Bamboo pocket stylus and so far, I'm loving it. Here's the Millennium bridge

I can now get much more detail in the image but it doesn't loose its fluidity. I have now also taken the final plunge and bought the full colour mixer so future sketchbook posts should be a bit more colourful.

More coming soon...