Waterspout.....

Walking into town I see this impressive jet of high pressure water shooting up into a spring sky. I tried making a drawing of it back at the studio, but you know, the moment had passed.

Panoramic Pose....

Me drawing the panoramic sketch.

Panoramic 2

Back outside in the cold and snow showers again today. Why am I doing this, the drawings I am producing are bad and hypothermia is setting in. I am a lone figure on an industrail trading estate drawing with hat and gloves on. The answer to this, I think, is experience.

Spending time looking at stuff, cursing the conditions when I could be warm in my studio or at home with Helen, and trying to draw what I see. It gives me something to remember.

The quality of these photos means it's hard to see what the sketch is let alone read anything but I hope they give an idea of what is going on on the page.

Panoramic...

Past few days I have been working on these panoramic sketches. First I had to cut up my moleskine to make the concertina folds. I tried calculating the amount of pages I would need by taking photographs, stitching them together in photoshop then dividing them up proportionally to the sketch book. This was a waste of time, photographs and the way I draw are totally different.

I was five page short for what I wanted as it turned out. This sketch shows the view standing on Thornes Lane and looking out over the River Calder towards the bridge and Chanty Chapel. The view moves from left to right where it ends up at the Waterfront Development and the Hepworth building site. The total time for this drawing was about two hours (the grey wash added at the studio, so maybe a bit longer) but that's two hours stood outside in freezing temperatures. I am glad to say that there was snow too, so I felt like a real outdoors extreme sketch maker good and proper.

Detail showing the concertina folds in my moleskine.

Eater Sunday

Walking around Wakefield with Helen doing a bit of drawing. In between getting wet and cold and going for cups of hot chocolate we talked about where I was at with this drawing project. On the way home we ended up looking at the Hepworth site from the Thornes lane side. If you don't know Wakefield then this doesn't mean a thing... anyway. Got all excited about doing a panoramic sketch of this area, something to get my teeth into.

Coffee With Ben...

'Oh yes' - I am getting into this Moleskine business, sticking white paper to the cream is great for speech balloons, will be doing more of that I think.

Roll Three Wrapped Up....

The Old Sun Lane Cinema....

Very rough and ready sketch with illegible writing and crossing out.... it's great.

City Walk on the Wall....

Another really badly lit photo of the roll of paper I'm working on today. I have been working from lunch time into the evening most days when the light is at its worst, by the morning the paper is rolled on and another section started.

Pencils from the top left of the image above.

Your Chance for 'Comment' Immortality

I have a month to finish this commission for Wakefield Art Gallery, then the scrolls of paper are going to be handed over to a tech team to hang my six month labour for the exhibition. When the exhibition is over, the scrolls will be archived along with a copy of this blog, so for the people out there who have been silently supporting this project, NOW is your chance to make a comment that will live on, electronically, FOREVER .....

Civic Quarter Tours

Saturday, I joined a group of people for a walk around the 'nicer' end of town as part of the Food, Drink & Rhubarb Festival in Wakefield. I really enjoyed myself, finding out about the past and some of the potential future buildings in this part of Wakefield. In between the nineteen sixties and seventies constructs there are some truly gorgeous buildings that can rival those in more traditional touristy cities like York. I just hope that the renaissance for building new stuff at the moment doesn't become another phase of 'sixties and seventies' type interlopers.

Ink Spillage in Close Up

I used dip pen and ink outside on the Civic Quarter Tour above and regretted it. Although the wind wasn't 'that' strong it was bad enough to make things uncomfotable, I got ink over my hands, trousers and sketch book. Aw well, I can throw it all away or I can work with it and accept it's all part of the process.

Superstructure Wall Drawing....

Here's me working on the wall using the previous entries sketchbook for reference, below is a close up detail of the drawing.

Outerspace Super Structure....

I drew this in daylight, although what I have written felt more like this....

Coronation Gardens...

Finished drawing from Moleskine sketchbook, approx A5 in size..

Pencilled then 'inked' with marker pens, approx A2 in size.

Meanwhile, in the Helen Thomas Studio....

Our good friend Justin is visiting this weekend for work and for pleasure. Helen's exhibition[Hundreds] is very near completion and they are photographing the work in Helen's studio and discussing the finer points of how the 5 x 5ft paintings are to be displayed.