Sunday, 16 August 2020

Beautiful Britain Drawings

 Right then, there’s urban sketches, and then there are other sketches. Putting it in basic terms, if you don’t make the sketch there and then on the spot, then it’s really not an urban sketch. I love urban sketching. However, with the best will in the world, who has 10 hours to sit in situ making a detailed sketch of a particular scene? So there is a marked difference in quality between my urban sketches, and other more detailed sketches. I’ll try to give you an example.


This is what you might get from me in terms of an urban sketch, There’s nothing wrong with that either. It’s clearly recognisable as Iron Bridge, but being a sketch, it is of necessity sketchy. Compare it with this.


Now, let’s acknowledge that the first sketch was made on A5 paper, while the second drawing was made on A3. The sketch on A5 wouldn’t have taken an hour, while the drawing on A3 took somewhere between 6 and 8 hours. Yet I enjoyed it so much that I decided to make it the first of a series of scenes of the UK which I particularly like, each carried out on A3 with the same attention to detail. So here’s the rest of them so far

London – Looking from the South bank across the Thames at Tower Bridge and the City of London

Chester – Eastgate, including the 1897 Diamond Jubilee Clock Tower


Edinburgh – Looking across the city from Calton Hill

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