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First up I headed over to the ancient gymnasium. Found myself a spot in the shade which was unfortunately right beside a leaking air con pipe that a giant wasp had decided was a great spot to return for a drink on a hot day. The things we do to get a picture.
The picture almost fills an A4 page in landscape. All completed using a 4B pencil. The lead became quite blunt at times but that was great for blocking in the vegetation. I did some measuring with my pencil to get the basic composition. After that there is plenty going on so I used horizontal and vertical scanning, and generally eyeballing, to position the rest of the elements. The vegetation works well in the composition to throw the white walls forward creating a set of alternating light and dark layers as you move back in the scene. I extended some of the darker vegetation around some of the edges to help reinforce the form of the buildings. All in all about an hour and a half for this.
So off I headed though the village looking for the next subject.
It's all about the challenge (they tell me). I noticed this jewellers window in a dark alleyway but the window was directly opposite a very bright alleyway. The result was the glass window was a fusion of white and black display busts fused with the interior of the shop and the reflected alleyway opposite. If this sounds hard to get your head around then believe me it was! This is less than half an A4 page. Again all using an 4B pencil. To get this far there was only one approach I could think of and that was to blank out what I was looking at, close my eyelids as much as possible and then block in tones in the relevant areas. I still think the image is confusing. It may well be this would be better suited to colour, tone just may not be enough to allow the objects to be discerned. The pair of shorts overhanging the window are clear. After that maybe the five busts with jewellery can be picked up. After that maybe you can pick up my silhouette. And finally there is a little bit of a reflected doorway pilaster. All in all I spent about 40 minutes at this before becoming frustrated and heading on.
So a quick 40 second stroll and this window which I had drawn before was there. I had this 4b thing going on so I thought I should try it with that.
About half an A4 page again. It's all just a bit too blurred and out of focus, that can easily happen with a soft pencil. The window has a horizontal and vertical metal bar. Getting those right I think would be critical to this picture. Maybe I was just getting tired but I didn't put the work in so the tones around the bars are confusing. I think I should have carried out some of the sketch using a 2B at first. Maybe about 25 minutes at this all standing. Time flies when you're sketching so it's hard to remember!
Anyway it was all just getting a bit hot outside so time to go for a soft drink in the shade to the Rainbird Bar. Well, there was this little cat on a cushion in front. Now in this instance a 4B is definitely your only option. It's a case of firing in some marks as quickly as possible before the subject moves. No time for measurement, it's all instinct. This is about a quarter of an A4 page. If you can't make this out the cat is facing away. That's an ear pointing up at the top and a tail at the bottom. I think I got about 45 seconds at this.
Well the cat came back and lay down. Back to the 4B and the same approach. This too is about a quarter of an A4. I think I had about a minute and a half at this one, at least it felt that way.
Light fading and I have my pint of Mythos. Tomorrow is another day.
Next to DAY 2
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