City Sketching Reimagined E-Book

Jeanette Barnes

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 101

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Acclaimed Royal Academy artist Jeanette Barnes and Paul Brandford breathe new life into sketching for town and city dwellers everywhere. Mercurial, inspirational, practical and charming, this guide covers everything from architecture to accidental paintings, cocktails to clouds, smudges to skyscrapers. With easily digested bite-size entries, it introduces many types of art materials, their uses and a number of insights and exercises to build confidence in a range of approaches to drawing. For the more experienced sketcher, the artists discuss the processes behind drawing and strategies to inject more creativity and open-mindedness about how to take a drawing forward. With great charm, the book gives a window onto the experiences of Jeanette, who has travelled to many cities worldwide in search of inspiring city subjects and a half-decent cocktail. Full of tips and ideas about working on location and back in the studio, this book is filled with the scribbles, sketches and preparatory drawings that feed into the larger works for which she is known. As a whole, the book is a multipurpose tool which can be used to unlock the potential of drawing both technically and philosophically so that the reader can be the architect of their own drawing experience rather than the recipient of someone else's.  After thirty years of drawing, many of them teaching, the authors still feel an excitement when picking up a pencil or some charcoal. This book gives every reader the chance to share that excitement and bring urban living to life.   

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Introduction

Accident

Ambition

Architecture

Artist’s Eyes

Biro

Black and White

Building Sites

Cable Cars

Charcoal

Classes

Cocktails

Collage

Colour

Composition

Compressed Charcoal

Cranes

Dirty

Docklands

Distraction

Dog Ends

Duplicate

Escalators

Evolution

Exhibitions

Experiment

Expertise

Expression

Figures in Movement

Film

Finished?

Fracture

Glue Stick

Graphite

Guidebooks

Hairspray

Honesty

Hotels

Hustle and Bustle

Ignoring People

Imagination

Ink

Instinct

iPads and Tablets

Jazz

Jeanette (by Paul)

Keep Everything

King’s Cross Station

Knives

Know Your Enemy

Light and Shadow

Linear Perspective

London

Longevity

Materials

Memory

Mistakes

Museums

Near and Far

Neatness

Neck Pillow

New York

Nibs

Olympic Park

OMG

One Size Fits All

Panorama

Paper

Parks and Recreation

Pastels

Paul (by Jeanette)

Pencils

Pens

Piccadilly Circus

Plan

Practice at Home

Process

Quality of Line

Quality versus Quantity

Quitter

Reportage

Results

Rubbing Out

Shanghai

Signs

Silhouette

Sketchbooks

Skewers

Skill

Space

Spider Technique

Statues and Sculpture

Texting

Tokyo

Tracks and Tramlines

Traffic

Underdrawing

Underground Stations

Upside Down

Vegas

Verticals

Viewfinder

Violence

Visual Language

Watercolour

Wax Resist

Weather

Wrong Hand

X Factor

XL

Yesterday

You Can’t Be Too Careful

Zero to Hero

Q&A

Index

About the Authors

INTRODUCTION

This book comes from our love of cities – their architecture and their people. It aims to serve a number of purposes; for the beginner it hopefully provides an encouraging introduction to drawing in general and urban sketching in particular. In this regard it introduces many types of art materials and their uses, and a number of insights and exercises to build confidence in a range of approaches to drawing. For the more experienced sketcher looking to develop their practice we examine the processes behind drawing and strategies to inject more creativity and open-mindedness about how to take a drawing forward.

Finally, it will give you a window into the experiences of Jeanette, who has travelled to many cities worldwide in search of inspiring subjects and a half-decent cocktail. Full of tips and ideas about working on location and back in the studio, this book is filled with the scribbles, sketches and preparatory drawings that feed into the larger works for which she is known.

As a whole, the book is a multipurpose tool that can be used to unlock the potential of drawing both technically and creatively, so that the reader can be the architect of their own drawing experience rather than the recipient of someone else’s. Drawing is so much more of a journey than a destination – it’s important to own the mode of transport and to know how to enjoy the ride.

We met as students at the Royal Academy Schools; Jeanette’s love of urban activity was very much part of her work even then. We live together and share a studio although we are never there at the same time so that territorial disputes don’t arise. Jeanette loves the adventure of exploring new cities and developing her location studies into large finished works. Paul’s collage-based works explore the colour and texture within a range of media, resulting in large-scale oil paintings.

After 30 years of drawing, both of us still feel an sense of excitement when picking up a pencil or some charcoal; the chance of bringing an image to life is a challenge met with enthusiasm and optimism. As much as we view drawing as a contemporary practice, we also have a love of visiting galleries and museums, often taking trips to draw from the works we discover there. We’ve always worked in education, aiming to communicate our love for the subject and pass on the practical know-how that we’ve built up over the years. Our teaching partnership We Explore Drawing runs a range of workshops for schools and colleges, both in person and online.

Here we’ve opted for an A-to-Z format so that the book is user-friendly and can be read from beginning to end or just dipped into more randomly; either way we hope it encourages and informs.weexploredrawing.co.uk

Canary Wharf, Docklands Light Railway StationCompressed charcoal (J)

Constructing the Wembley ArchCompressed charcoal (J)

ACCIDENT

The world around us is not entirely ordered, structured or controlled – things happen. The car crash, the lost wallet, the dropped ice cream. Spontaneous incidents – something surprising or unplanned – bring a certain kind of disorderly drama. In drawing this can be very useful; the key is to know which accidents might be helpful and which are distinctly not. It seems odd but this more or less started with a spillage of coffee – I just allowed the brush to travel through it in places, mopping up other more unhelpful areas. There was no weight of expectation, just dealing with the situation and literally messing around until something began to emerge.

Why not try it? Then, when it’s dry enough, add some pastel or other drawing materials until the balance between definition and suggestion works for you.

Liverpool Skyline(detail) Mixed media (P)

Liverpool Skyline(stages 1 and 2) Mixed media (P)

AMBITION

This should be at the heart of everything you attempt, whether it comes off or not. Desire and enthusiasm count for far more than any single artwork. Ask yourself what kind of ambition you have for your drawing so you can be specific about what it is you’re trying to achieve. If you can pin this down, then you have a better chance of improvement. Think about the qualities you’re trying to attain: does your work need more energy, atmosphere or structure? Choose the art materials best suited to your goals and discover ways of using them accordingly.

Manchester Chinatown(detail) Charcoal (J)

ARCHITECTURE

Architecture has long been my inspiration, the majestic buildings on Liverpool’s waterfront, the city’s twin cathedrals and busy shopping districts shaping my working practices when I was an undergraduate.

All these years later I travel around the world in search of new architecture and environments to experience and draw. Cities are symbolic of who we are, who we once were and who we desire to be. They are an expression of human ingenuity, imagination and desire.

St Mark’s Basilica, Venice(detail) Brush pen, white paint (J)

ARTIST’S EYES

This is an easy phrase to help you remember this very simple exercise. If you half-close your eyes, especially when outside looking at a scene, everything will be simplified, quite tonal. Open them again and you get all the details. It’s such a good way to start off. Simplify, then be particular. You can go in and out of this whenever you find it necessary.

Trams at St Peter’s Square, ManchesterPencil (J)

Shard From Outside London Bridge Underground Compressed charcoal 223 × 150cm (88 × 59in) (J)

BIRO

Everyone has a pen on them. If you’re caught without art materials but find something that you really want to capture, a biro is the easy answer. Along with convenience does come limitation; being almost entirely linear, biros will begin to struggle on larger sizes of paper, but they can capture an idea with ease and intensity. They’ll glide across paper pretty smoothly (try them on photographic paper and this sense of flow will be increased). Because a biro sketch is never a big deal there’s rarely any pressure to perform – without thinking, you’ll correct or redraw until the thing that you’re after begins to emerge. This is a great attitude to bring to more ‘important’ situations.

Begin with a two-minute sketch and allow it to develop for a further ten minutes, or as long as you feel it’s heading in the right direction.

Atmospheric BatterseaBiro (P)

Battersea Power Station sketchBiro (P)

St Paul’s CathedralBiro on photo paper (P)

BLACK AND WHITE

This isn’t as clear-cut as it sounds! If you take colour out of the equation you’re still left with something that’s full of nuance, variety and contradiction. Black-and-white artworks often emphasize how they’ve been made and the types of materials used. It’s a world in itself, which if you are at the beginning of your artistic journey is a useful start, as it’s as simple or as complex as you want to make it.

Sheikh Zayed Road, DubaiBiro (J)

BUILDING SITES

I have drawn many, many building sites over the years. I love how cities reinvent themselves through their evolving architecture; whole areas can be revitalized. Change isn’t always progress but building sites tend to be a place of optimism and visual dynamism regardless of outcome. It’s a bit like making a drawing – there’s endless activity, unexpected events and extremes of space and scale; for me, it’s the ideal subject, as results don’t have to be constrained or tidy to reflect that reality.

Bishops Square, Spitalfields Compressed charcoal150 × 215cm (59 × 85in) (J)

DrillPencil (J)

DiggerPencil (J)

Shard of Glass from London BridgeCompressed charcoal 150 × 223cm (59 × 88in) (J)

CABLE CARS

I really enjoy drawing the continuous movement of cable cars; they will always return, so you can keep on drawing them in the positions that best suit your design. The change of scale helps make an interesting composition. They can seem huge as they come towards you, then minute as they move away into space. Drawing the view from inside a moving cable car is also a uniquely challenging experience.

Cable Cars over Greenwich PeninsulaPencil (J)

Roosevelt Island CarsPencil (J)

Exercise

When I am sketching something moving, I’m happy to leave out parts, implying the motif rather than capturing it too much. If you are lucky to be able to sketch cable cars or anything that moves repeatedly, stay in one place and honestly draw everything you see in, say, a 15-minute period. You might start with pencil for the first half of the time and then, if it’s a repeated subject, use something darker like a thin marker pen, allowing marks to overlap some of the first drawing without cancelling out previous marks. I often think it’s the marks outside the main subject that help show movement and speed; it’s also about where objects have been and anticipating where they will go. I sometimes draw on tracing paper and then overlay drawings – it gives a feel of energy to the combined work.

Cable Car Towards ManhattanCharcoal 105 × 150cm (41 × 59in) (J)

CHARCOAL

This is a wonderfully versatile material that rewards bravery. If you think of it just as a messy pencil you won’t get the best out of it. It comes in a whole range of thicknesses from ridiculously thin to tree trunk. Medium and thick are the most useful in our opinion. Charcoal rewards instinctive use and can build light and shadow quickly; it responds well to lightness and heaviness of touch as well as speed of drawing, so is great for capturing movement. When used on its side it can block in large areas quite quickly and is extremely sensitive to the texture of the paper you’re using. You might try adding texture before you start with an acrylic paint or gesso (let it dry thoroughly). Any charcoal drawing will, however, need to be fixed either with hairspray or artists’ fixative to keep it stable in the long term.

Salford Quays, ManchesterCharcoal over acrylic gesso (P)

Nanjing Road, First of MayCharcoal 162 × 140cm (64 × 55in) (J)

Exercise

Test the flexibility of your responses and the charcoal’s potential by making a range of sketches of the same subject. Give yourself eight minutes to make a charcoal drawing on an A5 sheet, six minutes on an A4 sheet and only three minutes on an A3 sheet. The time you’ve spent observing your subject will make your decision-making sharpen up by the time you get to the last sheet. That knowledge of the subject will also allow you to become more instinctive and even playful with the material.

The Coffee Bean, ChicagoCharcoal (P)

CLASSES