Sketchbook – stuart brownlee

Part 4: Sketchbook work

Part 4 – warm-up sketches:

Lotty Nov15a — Lots watching the TV (that’s not there)!

Bobby Nova — Bobby – nearly asleep (not watching TV!)

Stuart Brownlee – 512319
5 November 2015

Part 4 - warm-up sketch 5 — Part 4 – warm-up sketch 5

Part 4 - warm-up sketch 6 — Part 4 – warm-up sketch 6

Stuart Brownlee – 512319
6 December 2015

Part 3: Sketchbook work

Trying out some streetscape sketching in preparation for Project 4 – Perspective:

Part 3 Project 4 - practice perspective sketch — Part 3 Project 4 – practice perspective sketch

Part 3 Project 4 - practice perspective sketch - with eye level — Part 3 Project 4 – practice perspective sketch – with eye level

Part 3 Project 4 - practice perspective sketch - with eye level and perspective lines to vanishing point - 1 point perspective — Part 3 Project 4 – practice perspective sketch – with eye level and perspective lines to vanishing point – 1 point perspective

Stuart Brownlee – 512319
October 2015

Part 2 Sketchbook work

Sketching what I see in front of me in our east-facing porch ‘Balnain summer’, June 15 (using a Staedler mechanical pencil)

Field sketches @ Balnain – wild thistles, June 15 (marker pen and coloured pencil)

Field sketches @ Balnain – woods and deer, June 15 (marker pen and pastel pencil)

Inverness street scene ‘You speakin’ to me?’, June 15 (Derwent Artbar raw quick sketch)

Falcon Square, Inverness, June 15 (Derwent Artbar & water brushed)

Last night before turning in (14 June 2015) I sketched outside to try and capture the light going down in the west from our garden in the Glen. I made three sketches, each reflecting a darkening in the sky. I used coloured 135gsm paper (24 x 34cm) for this and oil pastels to sketch down the varying colours as I saw them. In the studio later I then took a size 5 Filbert brush and a small amount of thinners to brush over and blend the pastels.

I was influenced by my tutor report on my first assignment in which he urged me to keep experimenting with tools, backgrounds and ways of applying marks:

Sketchbook - Balnain skyline to the west No.1 — Balnain skyline to the west No.1, June 15 (oil pastel, thinner wash on coloured paper)

Sketchbook - Balnain skyline to the west No.2 — Balnain skyline to the west No.2, June 15 (oil pastel, thinner wash on coloured paper)

Sketchbook - Balnain skyline to the west No.3 — Balnain skyline to the west No.3, June 15 (oil pastel, thinner wash on coloured paper)

My daily sketching has gone a bit awry of late as I seem to spending all my time on research work at the start of Part 2 – I’m a man and multi-tasking doesn’t come easily! Anyway, last night (20 June) I had a wee go at sketching a small scale mannequin to try and work out shadows and light:

Random sketch - what an entrance — Random sketch – ‘what an entrance’

I had tried something my tutor mentioned – made up a small A4-ish size shallow sand pit and dripped different coloured inks across and onto the sand in random patterns, then pressing down a sheet of A4-ish sketchbook paper to pick up whatever randomness appears. In this image the purple, blue, violet blobs and black ink smears. Once dry and dusted down from remaining excess sand (there are still grains of sand stuck into some of the dried ink) my eye saw a spectacular entrance so I added the water spout and picked out the form of the surfing/flying lady. This was great fun to do.

1 July 2015

Oil rigs in the Cromarty Firth – HB pencil & Artbar wax bars quick sketch

Trying out some streetscape sketching in preparation for Project 4 – Perspective:

October 2015.

Part 1 Sketchbook work

I tried out some pencils and charcoal pencils to get a feel for making different kinds of marks:

As a next task I made several sketches of dancers over the period of a day at The Shed in Evanston, Ross-shire:

I found it very tricky to keep up with the movement of the dancers and the individual moves were repeated a number of times, which is the only way I managed to capture them with any real sense of positioning and movement.

Out and about in the field next to our house, turned my hand at trying to draw a couple of trees that caught my eye at the top of the field:

I used graphite and a selection of coloured pencils for this quick sketch which took me about a half-hour. I liked the form of the twisted limb on the left-hand trunk, the bowl where the trunk on the right had lost a limb and the overall dynamic of what I saw in front of me. The tree line recedes up the hill behind the barbed-wire fencing, with front row being held ‘safe’ from deer within the two fences – it doesn’t really work as the deer can skip over very deftly.

A simpler sketch further along the tree-line. The indented trunk where tree damage has occurred caught my eye.

Stuart Brownlee – 512319
19 May 2015

I was out and about last month at Plodda Falls in Inverness-shire. It is located just outside the hamlet of Tomich, near Cannich and close to Glen Affric. Tomich and the Guisachan Estate is the ancestral home of the Golden Retriever breed of dogs. The Forestry Commission of Scotland manage the area around the falls and replaced the original wrought iron viewing platform overlooking the falls. I made a graphite pencil sketch of the new wooden platform:

Earlier in the month I had been in the area and made a couple of quick sketches, this time using coloured marker pens:

Last week I bought myself a full set of Derwent Graphic 24 pencils – 9B to 9H. This is the first set of pencils like this that I have ever owned and I made a quick try out in my sketch book of the range of 20:

Stuart Brownlee – 512319
31 May 2015

I made some sketches today in my concertina book of pages to continue to get to grips with my new pencils. I decided to try out some line and shading sketches of shapes and forms:

Sketchbook light and shadow shapes and forms

Stuart Brownlee – 512319
1 June 2015

Looking at space and perspective, I sketched the following three pages:

Stuart Brownlee – 512319
3 June 2015