Drawing Tuesday - roofscape / streetscape

While scrolling through Instagram I came across what looked like a roofscape, or skyscape perhaps. And I was intrigued by how the drawing was done (other similar examples @aschoppel). Her drawings are large and obviously took hours - she started the grid at the edge and worked inward.

When I started a little sample, in my A6 notebook, just to see how it might turn out, it became clear that "just copying" that drawing wouldn't be possible. To do the drawing properly would be to do it large, and to experiment to see what would evolve when I used the method with the objective of seeing how it worked for me. In other words - start at square one and develop my own version, which would certainly look different - for instance, Amanda's squares are so perfect, each in itself, and mine are sloppy. She must have done many variations to get to this one.

I put on a nice podcast (99% Invisible) and started with a circle of converging squares -

As results go, it was more like a Mayan calendar disk than it was like skyscrapers. Try again -

Happier with that, but I can tell you it took ages, and it was small...

From Janet K - The view from our bed.

From Richard - Is this a roofscape or the earlier view out of our window? Both. Fast-changing clouds and shadows, so no dawdling in watercolour!

From Sue S - Here is my sketch from our top landing. rooftop view with intermittent sun. Caran d’ache & neocolour. 

From Ann - This was a watercolour I completed a few weeks ago, of the house opposite.  

From Judith - I put together a montage of sketches from Peratallada and Pals in Catalonia and a roofscape from a Peratallada photo.

From Carol - The view of endless loft conversions and skips at home made me depressed so we escaped to Norwich where they have lovely chimneys.

From Hazel - A view from a bedroom window using pencil, pen and watercolour. Glad that the postman arrived!

From Mags - discovered the 'panorama' function on my phone , taking photos from underneath the parasol, altered in Photoshop using ' Find Edges' and 'Palette Knife' filters

From Sylvia -  revisited old sketch books for this one - cottages in village where I grew up, and camera obscura Edinburgh

From Joyce - the view from the train after leaving Blackfriars before descending to City Thameslink. From a photo taken before lockdown, hope to make the journey again one day soon! Dip pen and sepia ink.

From Jo - MICRO CEREAMI PEN REVIEW 0.5 (BLACK) KOREA is what it says on the pen! With water it goes this weird blue colour. I wish it had been black, but it is lovely to write with.

From Gillian - View from a back bedroom window

From Jackie - Here is a pen and ink sketch from the National Portrait Gallery restaurant… found in my files and reminiscent of those times before any notion of restricted movement due to the dreaded virus… 

It is a bit more inspiring than the view from my loft window!

From Sue B - well…that was one of the hardest things for me this week…could NOT get the angles right!!!!…so…i got distracted by painting the INSIDE of the windows and curtains in my drawing room…and then dodged and dived over 3 days to try and get the houses opposite and their rooftops!!

Studio Saturday - towards a bespoke shirt

For quite a few years now I've been promising to make a shirt to fit my tall thin son, who can never find sleeves long enough. And finally it's happened, meant to be a surprise for his birthday. No chance of fittings during the process...

First step was to search shelves and elsewhere for my copy of this comprehensive book, published in 1993; it had wandered away from the Sewing shelf.

Over a leisurely two days, I made a pattern from his wedding shirt, which seemed to fit him well. This involved checking and rechecking the white shirt and the cross-and-dot paper pattern pieces.

The fabric is a strange sort of stretchy denim, quite heavy, so I looked for some lighter fabric to line the collar, collar stand, yoke, and cuffs. A happy byproduct of the search was the chance to sort out several more fabric drawers, and even allocate some fabric to the charity shop (sorted into ziploc bags and labelled "craft fabric")

 Which to choose? I slept on the decision...

Would he actually like any of these?

Fabrics from South Africa, Australia, Japan

I chose the Aboriginal design and started sewing, adding seam allowances of different widths as set out in the book.

A plan!

 Fussy-cutting for the patterned fabric

Following the grain lines -

Space near the sewing machine was a bit constrained, as the little kitchen hasn't yet left my studio, the carpenter has had other things on his mind -

I like how the hidden bit of the yoke turned out

 The cuffs will be fun too -

Before and after, or rather, model and sample

Practising making the placket - great fun -

For the birthday, this is what got packaged up -

Unfortunately the cuffs were a bit small and a new pair is being attached.

Even more unfortunately the fit of the back has inexplicable wrinkles parallel to the sleeve seam. But the shirt sort of works as a jacket over a teeshirt.

Next version will be in shirting-weight fabric and will be fitted to the body at each stage!

Poetry Thursday - spotted in transit

I am the Song

I am the song that sings the bird.
I am the leaf that grows the land.
I am the tide that moves the moon.
I am the stream that halts the sand.
I am the cloud that drives the storm.
I am the earth that lights the sun.
I am the fire that strikes the stone.
I am the clay that shapes the hand.
I am the word that speaks the man.

- Charles Causley  (1917-2003)


Seeing this poem lifted my mood during my first journey on public transport since lockdown, my only journey (so far) since 23 March.

Mention of another poem by Causley, the much-anthologised Timothy Winters, appears in a Poetry Thursday post about The Knee by Christian Morgenstern.

On this site, Causley reads several of his poems, including The Ballad of the Bread Man, a poem not just for Christmas.

Drawing Tuesday - seashells, pebbles, sticks

"Pebbles from Porto", spread out on the table by the window and drawn first thing in the morning. If the sun hadn't happened to come out, those shadows would have been drawn from conjecture rather than observation!

From Richard - I’ve kept it simple, sketching shells we (but mostly Sue) have collected on our travels. Simple pencil outlines to make me plunge into watercolour to loosen up. Both pieces are rather lazy but I did enjoy it a lot. 

From Sue S - I began with an assembly of pebbles l’d combed from beaches. The result felt rather dull, so l & turned to studying a broken shell, purely enjoying shapes & then shadows when the sun popped out.

From Najlaa -

From Sue B - I love shells…and have collected from many locations over the years and have them in an alabaster dish on the side of my bath…the scallop shells are from the isle of Arran…the largest ones are from the beach near Dunbar. 

I have tried for the first time with coloured crayon wash as well as pencil

From Ann - A 'sunburst' collage of shells completed some time ago in Mauritius and two watercolours of large and small shells  just finished.  It was a great joy to look again at my huge shell collection and also to quietly study them.

From Mags - A few characterful stones from my extensive collection. When the Henry Moore exhibition was at Kew Gardens, there was a selection of animal bone, flints, shells, pebbles and driftwood from his studio on display : found objects from the earth, returned to the landscape as sculpture.

I used a limited palette of watercolour: mainly Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber, French Ultramarine with a touch of Alizarin Crimson for the ' holey' one.

From Sylvia - Fragments dug up from gardens with new Schmincke watercolours!

From Janet B - I’ve been following the water colour discussions with interest although I don’t have any water colour paints myself. But then it’s taken me five years to start using coloured pencils so give me time. However a while back my WI had an art session and so here is my one and only water colour (plus 2B) and a chalk sketch. 

From Gillian - Using pencil, crayons and gouache and edited

From Carol - From North Norfolk beaches – shells, gorse sticks and hag stones with holes to keep the witches away! A first attempt by me at using gouache – tricky but I enjoyed it.

From Judith - 40 years ago I polished stones and I have just spent an hour playing with them! Then a very broad interpretation of sticks, bark from neighbourhood trees.

From Joyce - a shell (don’t remember from where) sketched with ink, and a bag made from a previous drawing. One side is free machine embroidery and the other side appliqué with Kaffe Fassett scraps.

From Janet K - A rock and pottery shards found by my kids mud-larking on the shore of the Thames. Pencil and Neocolour - water-soluble wax pastels.

From Jackie - little shells from travels … compulsive collector when at the beach… pen and crayon

From Jo - "Flintfoot" - collage of a sculpture made by me from a flint pebble with a hole in and a random hedge-cutting found c.50 years ago

 "Titanic" - sculpture made by me a few months ago: flint pebble, driftwooed (cleat from a boat?) and random hedge-clipping