(Damp) SketchCrawl at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

We had a very creative, but rather wet SketchCrawl last Saturday. It was a return visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We've had several really good days there since our first visit in 2011 and last time, the YSP even made a film about us!

We had a brilliant turn-out, despite the grim weather forecast. Rain was definitely in the air. The sensible option, which many people went for, was to draw inside the galleries, but I felt in the mood for the landscape, so braved the outdoors. Not my best idea. Especially since I had opted for pastels. It was already spitting when I set up on the main terrace to sketch the row of Josephsohn sculptures below. The chalk soon refused to take on my damp paper and, when I tried to blend colours, the surface of the paper came off.

I got a bit grumpy, I must confess. The rain got heavier and heavier. My tray of pastels started to fill up. I actually had to up-end my A3 sketchbook, to let the water pour from one corner! 

Luckily the drawings (and my feet) dried out OK in the end and, actually, now I look back at the sketch, I'm rather pleased with the way the adverse conditions affected the process. I got an interesting print on the opposite page too: 

I retreated indoors, where I used paper hankies to dry everything off the best I could and left little water pools on the gallery floor. I had a couple of goes at more Josephsohn sculptures, but my heart wasn't really in it - I wanted to be outside.

We stopped for a bit of lunch and, by the time we were ready to start again, the rain had paused. Optimistically (foolishly?) we left the sanctuary of the gallery area and walked down to the lake. There were Canada Geese everywhere, eating the grass, so I whipped out a tiny A6 book and my Sailor pen:

Almost as soon as I put pen to paper, the rain began again. I huddled further and further into the beech trees:

Luckily, as well as my pastels, I had also packed my watercolour pencils, which didn't mind the damp. Since my feet were already sodden, I just zipped up my waterproof and carried on regardless:

I was walking back to base at the end of the afternoon, curious to see how my fellow sketchers had fared and desperate for a cuppa, when I spotted these fabulous, twisted branches on the ground. Luckily there was a pine tree to shelter under, so I stopped for one last drawing:

I thought quite a few people might have sloped off, but when we I got back, ready for our usual sharing of the sketchbooks, I discovered that almost everyone had braved it out to the very end. They had all sketched their socks off, despite the conditions. It was fascinating to see everyone else's work (and great to warm up with a nice mug of hot coffee!). The sketches were as exciting and varied as ever. We had two new young members (only 9 years old), who both did a great job, sketching the Yinka Shonibare sculptures. You can see their work here and here.    

Pastel Drawing On Location

I am doing a lot of waiting at the moment. I can't proceed with my mural until I get the go-ahead on the rough and I am also waiting to hear back from publishers about book projects. I hate that 'in-limbo' feeling, so have decided to get on with other things and forget about it all. 

Over the Bank Holiday weekend, I was inspired by all the different work I saw at Sheffield's Open Up. It's so lovely to visit other local artists, especially in their work space. Since the weather was so lovely at the start of the week, I took my pastels out into the Peak District for some sketching:

I don't normally use pastels on location, as they are really messy, tricky to transport and the results are a bit of a nightmare to get home unscathed (especially as I can never resist the double-page spread). But I tried doing it once last year, during a SketchCrawl out in Edale and was really pleased with the results... 

...so I had another go on Tuesday morning. The one below was what I spent most time on. The light changed a lot, as the sun was in and out, which was quite a challenge, but I didn't mind, as I wasn't trying for naturalism, more an impression, capturing colours and shapes:

I tried fixing it, but of course, all the colours were immediately dimmed and it lost its impact (grrrrrrr...), so I then spent ages reworking it, to brighten it up, and didn't spray it again. 

Then I did the drawing at the top very quickly, as the sun had gone and things had turned windy and cold. I used a 2nd sketchbook, so as not to damage the first drawing any more than was necessary.

I was back in the studio by lunchtime, so felt very pleased with myself. It was just what I needed to kick-start the day.

You can see the rest of my sketchbooks on my website or, if you are interested to watch me create a sketch, take a look at this film from my YouTube channel:

Children's Library Mural - Creating the Rough

I am still working on my mural design for the new Wakefield Library. I have scanned in all the most interesting creatures the children drew during the illustration workshop, like this badger and flamingo. I've kept everything at low resolution for now, so my computer doesn't grind to a halt:

I explained to the children that my plan was to create a crazy chase through the library, so some of them drew useful sundry objects in the background of their illustrations, things like shocked librarians, flying books and library signage: 

These were all very helpful to add a sense of the location and to help create extra chaos. I had to find a way to incorporate this great staircase too:

As I expected, some simple graphics behind the creatures was needed, to tie the whole thing together. I decided to make the perspective really wonky, to add to the fun and to help the staircase fit. I pulled the colours from the colour scheme of the library furniture. 

I had to flip and resize a lot of the animals in Photoshop. I spent ages moving them around to try and fit as many in as possible: 

I wanted to add one or two bits of mine too. The dragon from Dragon's Dinner was an obvious choice. It was the book I used to kick-start the project, since the story is one big chase, and made a great counter-point to the massive dragon on the left: 

The library has a thing about crocodiles (there's a stuffed one under the floor in the museum downstairs), so I balanced the croc from Kangaroo's Cancan Cafe onto a computer. There's a couple of my other animals tucked in there too.

There's a big sceen mounted in the middle of the wall in the children's library, which I had to bear in mind. I thought it would be fun to use that as a prop too (though there is a risk it will be so well camouflaged by the mural, punters may not realise it is there!). 

This is just a rough by the way. I will boost the colour and strengthen up the outlines of some of the animals before I re-scan them, then get rid of fold lines and smudges in Photoshop. 

I thought photo-montaged books spines would be a fun wat to fill the bookshelves, the same as I'm doing with the computer screens (spot my website!), so I've been scanning in the books from my shelves at home. Picture books are very skinny though and only hardbacks have enough spine - even stretched, they don't fill much space. I've now run out, so will have to borrow some to fill the bottom shelf. That's why I am going for ordinary adult non-fiction to fill the end bookcase. I'm still half way through:

I will use this low res version as a template when I up the resolution. I want to do the real scans at the actual size I need them, without messing around in Photoshop (otherwise you lose quality), so the plan is to scale up the template in manageable sections, then measure the size of each item, scan it to fit and simply drop it in. In practise, I doubt it will be possible to get them exact, but at least things should only need a single tweak.

Library Mural: Designing the Layout

A while ago I mentioned a mural project that I am doing, based on children's drawings created during an illustration workshop, focussing on characterisation and movement. The wall I have to cover, at Wakefield Library, is over 13 metres long, but only 2 metres high - very long and thin - so the idea is to create a chase scene along it, as if the children's animals are running through the library.

I let the teachers take the drawings back to school with them, for the kids to finish off. Unfortunately, instead of posting them a couple of days later, as promised, it took them 6 weeks and repeated hassling, so I am only now getting down to it.

I am currently spending my time on Photoshop, trying to work out how to lay things out. It's so massive, and such a weird shape, I'm working on a one-tenth, low res mock-up, into which I have placed scans of all the animals, so I can move things around and re-size them, until it looks OK. Then I'll re-scan everything at the right size, as the final artwork will be created digitally (in sections and at one quarter size, so my computer doesn't blow its brain).

Although my initial chase idea sounded simple, I soon discovered that, if I don't want to end up with just a 'procession' of animals, in a long, uninteresting line, I will need to draw in incidental props, like bookshelves for animals to climb onto, or chairs for them to jump over. I might need to do some graphic things will colour in the background too (like I did with the cover of Swap!), to divide up the space. Not sure yet.

Right: back to it...