Pen & Ink Sketchbook & Urban Sketching
In the busy schedule of work and life, Richard, like many other artists, tries to manage his work-life balance. He cannot jump in and create his next piece of art without first practice sketching and getting warmed up. He tries to sketch wherever and whenever he can. He sketches for local galleries but for pure pleasure for himself, but there are many benefits from a habitual routine of daily sketching for anyone who likes to draw.
The most obvious reason for sketching is to get better at what we do as artists. If you practice something long enough it becomes second nature, and your skills refine. Beyond the obvious, it is a great way to focus on areas that need work. If he is struggling to get a likeness of someone, he does many thumbnail sketches until he gets it right – he never settles for the first attempt. As you sketch more, you learn from your mistakes and the finished picture will be far better.
Richard’s advice to you? Take 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes a day to get out that sketchbook or use your iPencil on your iPad Pro or just your smart phone mobile using the Sketchbook or Procreate apps (try it, it’s fun). Daily sketches should not be about how long it takes you to draw the chosen subject but enjoy and learning about the process and techniques of simply drawing. It’s your sketchbook; you don’t have to show it anyone – it’s for eyes only!
Why not join any of the urban sketcher’s art groups around the country nationwide or on social media – there’s many on there wit all varying degrees of ability. They’re very popular, and you meet many like-minded sketchers just like you.
Why not give it a try!
Pen & Ink Pointillism
Richard has recently started to paint using acrylics in between commissions. It is fun to try something else from time to time but he is really known for his pointillism work.
But exactly what is Pointillism?
The drawings shown in the second gallery are created with a basic biro ball point pen to create pointillism drawings -also known as stippling and divisionism. The technique is formed by using the biro pen to literally dot the paper. Dots dots are gradually applied and grouped together to form an image. Basically, the closer the dots, the darker the tones and the further the dots are apart, the lighter the tones. As you see the solitary dot up close, further away the final picture gives a photo-realism effect, which Richard strives to achieve.
As a pointillist, he is totally fascinated by the black dot which has no dimension, no length or width. It is a rigid, hard medium, and can be very unforgiving if a mistake is made. Basically, you do not make mistakes!
The end result, however, justifies the means and is well worth the wait. Some drawings have taken over 100 hours to complete. As you can appreciate, pointillism can literally send you dotty. It is a very, very, very, VERY slow way of creating art and is tedious and sometimes boring but the clients are always happy!
Pointillism was first introduced in the 1880s by the French artist Georges Pierre Seurat where he used tiny primary coloured dots to generate secondary colours to great effect. Basically, I have taken this to another extreme by using pen and ink. For the art historians amongst you, Pointillism is classified as a Post-Impressionist (or Neo-Impressionist) school of drawing and is a product of the Société des Artistes Independents in 1884
Brian Clough – Football Genius
My tribute to the Great Brian Clough!
As a mad footie fan during the nineties I drew Nottingham Forest football stars and the highlight was presenting Brian Clough with one of my drawings at the last home game of the season. He retorted,
“My word young man, you’ve made me look pretty!”
This later drawing of Cloughie celebrates the life of the much loved local Derbyshire man and legend following his sad and premature passing on the 20th September 2004. He led Derby County and Nottingham Forest out of the depths of the Second Division and made them world beaters. His achievements will never be repeated.
Yet his playing career at Middlesbrough and Sunderland was equally outstanding, with 251 goals in 274 games, before a knee injury cut short his success as a goal scorer.
He was the best manager England never had!
I decided that it was time to celebrate his life and just what he meant to football fans and the people who knew him shortly after he died. The images depict the football manager, the great player and the kind and caring man that loved his fans and his family – the little girl in the drawing is his grand-daughter.
Cloughie took just over 50 hours to complete and consists of approximately 300,000 ball point pen and ink dots.
My meeting with Brian, as with many others, was captured in ‘The Day I Met Brian Clough’ book by Marcus Alton. You can buy the book here to read some great stories about Brian Clough. He celebrated his retirement from the beautiful game in 1993. What a day and what a manager!
