Weekend Sketches

Yesterday I just never found the time for another watercolour Treasure Island copy. In the last two or three months I’ve just been working in my Canson A5 mixed media sketching journal. However on Friday I wanted to make a copy of one of William Heath Robinson’s illustrations for the poems of Edgar Allan Poe. The original is such a complex illustration that I decided to use one of the empty pages in my Daler Rowney A4 sketchbook. Here’s my copy.

You know, I enjoyed it so much that I used the book for all of my sketches this weekend. Amongst others was this copy of a Treasure Island illustration by Walter Paget. Paget was a respected and very successful English illustrator in the last years of the 19^th century ad the first couple of decades of the 20^th. His illustrations to “Treasure Island” provide many striking images of the story and are amongst the most popular.

Finally, then, old Victoria London, a favourite subject of mine to sketch. This one took hours.

This week's pirate

Sorry – I’m a little bit late posting this one. This is my copy of Robert Ingpen’s Long John Silver. Robert Ingpen is an Australian artist and his illustrations of “Treasure Island” are among my favourites.

Seven Ages of Public Transport on London's Roads

 Last week I posted recent sketches of various forms of public transport on London's roads through the ages. I realised hat I hadn't made a new sketch of a trolleybus. So, here we go, in chronological order of their use rather than when I made them

1) Horse drawn bus

2) Horse drawn tram

Electric Tram

Motor Bus

Trolley Bus

Double Decker 

Now, yes, I know that's only six. Because I haven't yet done what should be the last of he series, a modern London Double Decker. Watch this space.

This week's Pirate

 Sorry, busy and no real time for chat this morning. Yesterday though was the third consecutive Saturday when I made a watercolour copy of an original Treasure Island illustration. The original of this was by Louis Rhaed and made at the end of the 19th or start of the 20th century. 

Me and London Buses (and Trams

^{You know, if I’ve got an old, or very old black and white photograph of London to use as reference for a sketch, then I’m happy. If it has a method of public transport in it, then doubly so. What can I say? I’m a simple soul. So while I’ve been chancing my arm at copying some Treasure Island illustrations recently, during the last week or two I’ve also been making some sketches of London transport. Here they are:-}

London’s first ever scheduled horse drawn buses were operated by Mr. George Shillibeer in 1829. Shillibeer – shilli name. Regulations over the next 30 years saw more efficient, lighter buses which could carry more passengers. Horse drawn services came under competition from motor buses and electric trams from the end of the Victorian era, and the last horse drawn service was withdrawn in 1911. The bus in the picture was operated by the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC). The company was formed in the eighteen fifties, and was one of the main companies to be amalgamated to form London Transport in the 1930s.

London’s first red motorbuses were operated by the LGOC – General for short. In fact London Transport would use the same colour scheme when they took over. London’s first really successful motor bus was the type B that entered service in 1911. During World War I 900 of these buses were sent out to the Western Front where they were nicknamed ‘Ole Bill’ after a popular newspaper cartoon figure of the time. The last Type B was withdrawn in 1926.

^{A couple of horse drawn tram lines began running in London in the 1860s, but they didn’t really get going until the 1870s.Electric powered trams weren’t used until the first years of the 20th century. By the outbreak of the First World War London had the largest tram network in Europe. However it was hard for tram companies to find investment for further expansion in the 1920s. Trams were expensive to maintain and competition from larger and more reliable motorised buses saw some companies increasingly switching. By the mid 30s it had been decided to replace London’s remaining tramways with motor buses and with trolleybuses powered by overhead wires. The outbreak of World War 2 meant that the last tram services remained until 1951.}

It's probably fair to say that no form of public transport ever contributed so much to London as the Routemaster double decker bus. Its contribution to London’s visual identity alone is immense. The iconic Routemaster first ran in 1954, and even though production ended in 1968 Routemaster services were still running into the new millennium, finally ending in 2005. I haven’t lived in London for 39 years, but I was born there, I grew up there, I went to London University. It will always be my home town. And there are some things which always feel like home to me, and a Routemaster bus is one of them. Thankfully, of the almost 3000 built, over a third of them still exist.

NC Wyeth

I’m sorry to admit that I was not very familiar with the work of American artist and illustrator NC Wyeth before I turned my attention to Treasure Island. This is a shame, because he was a wonderful artist and illustrator who produced what is arguably the most famous and celebrated set of illustrations for the novel.

Wyeth’s career lasted more than forty years, from the earliest years of the 20^th century until his death in the mid-forties. His first commission as an illustrator was for no less a publication than the Saturday Evening Post. He made his illustrations for Treasure Island in 1911 before he was 30. His illustrations are a million miles away from the kind of work being done by Arthur Rackham and his contemporaries in the UK. His use of colour is most appealing. However, this is what means I have ot tried to copy his work before today.

Believe me, I’m fully aware of my shortcomings when I have a paintbrush in my hand, But last week I plucked up the courage to have a go at Ralph Steadman’s Long John Silver and blow me, the results were much better than expected. Not brilliant, not, but not so bad as to make me want to rip the paper to shreds and set fire to the pieces after jumping up and down on them singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Trust me, that's an improvement on some of the rubbish I’ve perpetrated in the past.

So here it is. 

At the moment I’d say that I still prefer Mervyn Peake’s grim monochrome Treasure Island, but Wyeth’s are wonderful too.

Two more Treasure Island Illustrations, me hearties.

Yesterday I moved away from my illustration copies just for a change and produced a couple of responses to daily drawing challenges on Facebook. Before that I’d made another copy of a Peake Treasure Island illustration, which you can see here. 

So this morning I made up my mind to take the plunge and make an ink AND  watercolour copy of Ralph Steadman’s fantastic illustration of Long John Silver. I had to spend a while working out a methodology for doing it. My initial thought was to maybe put some background colour down first. The thing is, though, it can play havoc with an ink pen when you try to use it on top of dried watercolour. So it had to be ink lines first, hen apply the colour. I bought new uniball 0.05mm and 0.1mm pens since the ones I had are pretty much used up. Using the 0.05mm pen, a 0.3mm and a 0.8mm this is what I came up with.

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Incidentally I used Uniball pens because they are reliably waterproof and will take a watercolour on top with no running. No, they haven’t paid me for a testimonial, more’s the pity. Now, at one point I did cosier just laying down some watercolour to begin and finishing with watercolour pencils. But, you know, while I’m pretty confident of achieving what I wan with black ink fineliners, I’m always fearful of overworking with colours, and once I got to a certain point with the paint I felt that I was in danger of overworking it if I added more, and so I stopped. So this is the finished copy. 

As a copy, I’m pretty pleased. As a colour copy I’m absolutely delighted.