Hurrah.., but Tech grump

Am now scannered up again. Which is very satisfying.

First test scan..

Liked his haircut. very short at the sides and all scruffy chaos on top. Is that a valid instruction to my barber next time I go ? What do you think I would come out with ?

Anyway... Tech grump...

Have spent the entire day getting the lovely new scanner/printer to do what it says on the box. ( i,e, scan and print instead of just sitting like a shiny black monolith - me being the 2001 ape waving his bone in frustration ) Turns out the scanner driver they supply isn't supported by Mac OS X, and you have to go to the Epson site and download a different one, ( they don't tell you this on the help site, I had to work that out myself ) which the Mac then refuses to open because Epson isn't a 'recognised' site and you have to sneak it in by the back door, so to speak.

Anyway now have printer running on WiFi, but scanner still needs USB. I will tackle that tomorrow.

But happy to be fully operational.

Turban

Really enjoyed sketching this guy.

A seriously impressive beard.

Ringbinder spine

Although not really, but I really like where the spiral ended up in this drawing and I think it contributes to the slightly elongated way the drawing ended up.

Ha.

Beanies and ( easter ? ) Bonnets

Again, with the hats.

But it's been so cold of late, can you wonder at it.

Recent round-up

A few sketches from the last few weeks.

People seeing out the last few days of winter, looking forward to the energy of spring.

Well I am at least.

It's not what you wear...

...It's how you wear it.

Some people pull off scruffy like it was made for them alone.

Others peer out of their clothing like sheltering animals.

Swap over

I was sketching this girl on the tube...

...enjoying how her hair had been pinned up and liking how the sketch was going. And then we came to a station and while I was starting the shading she got up and left and this guy sat in her place.

And while I am also pleased with the scruffy lad's sketch, part of me is saddened that the girl sketch never got to go any further.

Which suddenly makes me wonder how many of all the thousands of Londoners there are I have never seen, never sketched.  I wonder if it's higher or lower than I think.

I have never, to my knowledge, sketched the same stranger on two separate occasions.

Applehands

As in anything you do consistently, you occasionally make little alterations and refinements to the way you do it, and gradually, accumulatively, you get better. So it is with sketching, I find I will make a mark, or a way of dealing with something that works well, and I use it again until it becomes part of the whole.

This is often just stylistic things, the real changes - how you really see things, how you interpret everything around you - happen magnificently rarely. This isn't one of those posts.

But what does happen, is all the little tricks and quirks you have added come together and you do a drawing that seems to you to be a new step forward. A sign post that you are on vaguely the right path.

Or at least some kind of path, rather than thrashing in the brambles.

Yesterday gave me just such a sketch.

You'll need to click on it and enlarge it as it gets a bit lost as it sits here.

Usually I sketch and turn the page, move on to the next one, and only really go back and look at what I drew at the end of the day. This one stopped me, and made me think, you know, I like that.

The guy was intent on doing something with his i-phone ( nothing new there then ) and I took the opportunity to focus on his hands, trying to see the shapes and structure of them, as his thumbs jabbed and swiped.

What do I think makes this a signpost sketch ? The way I now treat hair. The hands. Loving hands, but they are BUGGERS to draw. The lack of wrong lines. ( only one and I shaded it in to loose it ).

The overallnessness of it.

I don't really know.

Okay, trumpet blown, back slapped. Going back to the day job.

Scrabble

A co-worker playing Scrabble on his phone during a lull in the proceedings.

I know it was Scrabble because he told me later.

In times of empty trains

Drew this guy several times on a train journey, as he was the only other person in my carriage.

First up the sober and serious sketch. Like I was trying.

Shall I draw him again ? No one else around and he isn't taking a blind bit of notice of me... 

So went for his overall pose as he sat.

Very, very pleased with his shoe. Very pleased.

Then went in for a quicker sketch.

And it all got a bit cartoony.

Nothing to really tell you about him. His coat was red, but he wasn't giving anything away.

Guards Guards

One of the Guards as the National Gallery.

A subject matter previously visited by much greater Gods than me.

Saturnine

That's how I would describe this bloke. Saturnine.

Which I took to mean dark and broody, but when I looked it up it said: gloomy, sluggish, dull, heavy, grave. Which isn't quite the same.

So apologies in advance, but I'm not changing the post as I can't think of anything else to write about him.

Which I apologies about as well.

Sorry.

Cornish Coffee

This bloke's beard gripped his throat like a strangler.

Like a Rottweiler shaking a chicken in it's jaws.

And he had brought his large to-go coffee from The West Cornwall Pasty Company, which strikes me as the last place you would think of for a caffeine fix.

Two blokes on a train.

Am starting to worry that my subjects are getting a bit samey. Need to find some new sketching arenas.

Because people on trains.. well I am not being challenged much at the moment. The runners made me think to find newer situations to sketch people in. Just need to think where.

In the mean time...

...blokes on trains.

No colour

Unless you agree that black is a colour too.

This guy was so armed against the world. Cap pulled low, scarf up high, dense beard, peering out through the shadow. Impenetrable. Impervious. 

Just how you need to greet some days.

Vinegar and...

Brown paper.

I can never resist a Boxer's/Roman profile. Always amazes me. 

Blunt bruiser/noble genes, take your pick.

If their names were Jack and Jill that wold be too... wishful.

Beards 306 - 309

For want of a theme to unite a few sketches together, I hereby present three gentlemen of the hirsute variety.....

They do define the jaw line very helpfully.

Hmm, he looks a little miffed at something.

... and one guy  well on his way to joining them !

And they are all facing the same way. Hadn't thought about this before. Do I favour drawing someone from one side rather than the other ? Will investigate more.

Traveling 2gether ?

These two sat quietly side by side as the DLR rattled through the tunnel on one of the Greenwich runs from back when. Not even sure if they knew each other, but stuck together now.  Like the line weight, finer than usual. Was using a ball point pen.

More colour experimenting -208

   Had some time this morning to do a bit more playing in photoshop, trying ways to add colour.

   Hmmm. Not sure. It does seem that the purely linear nature of a sketch is at odds with the bulk that colour brings. A sketch allows the eye to make it's own mind up where things are, but colour has to have an edge. And is more dictatorial. Back of the hood is way too heavy. And blue ? How did that happen ?

   But in playing around I started thinking about Sargent's charcoal sketches, and how he uses a rubber. And how the Photoshop eraser tool seems to have the same sympathy. It's very different to watercolour, almost the opposite

   Hmmm. Maybe try not to be too precious ( and oh does the geek fan-boy needs slapping down as I write that ! ) with a fidelity to the original line. Let the two co-exist, like... well, yes... like layers.

   Oh look, if I alter the background...

   Okay, definitely something to learn here. 

Blue beard - the sequel

As a sketch this veers very close to caricature. But I do like how the body works on it, the arm held back like that.

Another quick post - will do a proper catch up at the weekend.