November Sketchbook

We've been doing a fill-a-sketchbook-in-30-days challenge at work this month. It's not a huge sketchbook, just a 24-page one from Muji so it's not as difficult as it sounds. For me the idea was to just get drawing. No pressure, just draw. Anything. Most of these were done on my commute so it's mostly people drawing, which I enjoy a lot.

Here are some of my favourites.

Ink sketch

Drawn on a shaky train with a Japanese fude brush. Inspiration provided by Ludovico Einaudi.

Wedding

At the end of last year I was privileged to be invited to my first wedding - that of Sally and Peter.
Sally is a gifted artist who I met through the comics scene. She had done a fabulous job at decorating the wedding reception with origami orchids made from book and comic pages, which gave the occasion a very nice personal  touch.
Instead of presents she asked us to do some sketches and I was more than happy to comply!

I was honoured to be able to share their moment.

From having had a wedding attendance of zero only recently I'm looking at two weddings coming up this year. You can tell when you're getting older.

Recent sketches

I lost the pen I normally use for my sketchbook (a Pilot G-Tec C4) on a recent trip to a karate competition (from which I brought home a silver medal by the way!) so I've been reverting back to the good old biro until I get a new pen.

Biros actually feel quite a lot like using a pencil, minus the possibility to erase of course. You get dark or light lines depending on how hard you press and it's quite easy to fall for the temptation to correct mistakes by going over the same area again and again... usually resulting in nothing more than a messy nest of lines and no real improvement.
That's why I love using a more fluid ink pen like the G-Tec when I'm out and about with my sketchbook. Its thin tip is precise and it forces you to be decisive when you put down a line. If the line is wrong you just leave it and move on which makes sketching fun and liberating and there's a definite charm to describing things with as few lines as possible.

With the risk of this turning into one of those "this is the tool to use" talks, I'd just like to end on the note that of course it's all about what you're comfortable with. It's worth highlighting the benefits of using a tool that makes you take responsibility for your lines and preferably think before you put something down however.

Leeds Thought Bubble 2009 wrap

This was my first time attending Leeds Thought Bubble festival with fellow Manga Shakespeare artist Faye Yong. I had heard good things about the show by people who'd caught it last year so there were certainly expectations but the show managed to be everything I'd hoped for and more!

The convention part of the show was a Saturday-only event and was held in the Savilles hall. Most of the day was spent at the SelfMadeHero table. 1st gen Manga Shakespeare artists Sonia Leong and Emma Vieceli took time from their own tables and popped by to do short signings for their titles (Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet/Much Ado respectively)around mid-day.

Doug from SelfMadeHero hooked us up with giant pads and markers so Faye and I went about sketching out crossovers of our characters from Twelfth Night and Merchant of Venice.

Despite getting only about 4 hours of sleep the night before the Saturday evening party in the next-door casino was something that couldn't be missed. Apart from great people and a bar that was open until the early hours of the morning, they also arranged for comicker DJs and a burlesque drawing session.
Sadly I lost my camera at the casino so the few pictures that were taken seem lost forever. :( The only records I have left now are in my sketchbook.

The Sunday program consisted of workshops and talks. We went to one where Frank Quitely talked about his art and influences which was every interesting. I wasn't very familiar with his work before this but when he showed us a few sample pages with mind-bogging paneling it reminded me of how flexible the comic medium can be. The guy deserves serious respect... :)
Did a sketch of the man in the talk and as he was being interviewed by some students.

And that was the end of Thought Bubble. Many thanks to the wonderful organisers who made the event such a great show to be at! It will be the place to be this time next year so make an effort and GO! :D

Stockholm Skeppsbrokajen

While in Sweden I took the chance to pop up to Luleå, the town that I grew up in, this last weekend. It's been about 3 years since I last saw my friends up there so it was great to catch up. Two unexpected encounters with old classmates and a summer storm (love the summer storms up north!) were some of the highlights of the trip.


On the way back for my last few weeks in Visby I had a few hours to spare in Stockholm so I took a walk from the train station down the main shopping street Drottningatan, past the house of parliament and through Old Town down to the water (a very popular tourist streak). These sketches were drawn on the pier at the edge of Old Town where you can get a ferry that takes you on a sightseeing tour along the shores of Stockholm. (Why do I feel like I'm writing a tourism advert?)

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Visby Medieval Week

Around this time every year, the town of Visby gets invaded by all manners of people dressed in medieval clothing. Some are natives but many come from all over the country as well as from abroad. It's a sign that the annual Medieval festival is about to start!
We're in the middle of medieval week right now and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't enjoying every moment of it. Unfortunately I haven't been able to see as much as I would've liked to but it's pretty much impossible to escape the medieval people.
The other night I was walking home along the old city wall which passes the medieval market. A big group of medieval people were playing flutes and drums around a campfire - all this under a gorgeous full moon. I felt whisked away to another world.
A colleague at work told me she moved back to Visby after spending some years on the mainland (Visby is on the island of Gotland) because there's just something magical about this town. I can believe it.

These are some sketches from a performance of the Swiss musical group Koenix. They play "loud and impulsive medieval music on bagpipes and drums", perfect for the theme of the festival. I really enjoyed their performance and it was fun to try and to capture their movements.

The first sketches were done with Stablio coloured pencils and the last ones with an Akayashi Sai watercolour bush pen in burnt umber. I only bought one of these brush pens to try it out. It feels great but I've only used it as an ink brush. It would be fun to try it with water as well.

P.S. If you ever want to visit Visby during Medieval week (or most other times during the summer for that matter), be sure to book accommodation early! This event is extremely popular and finding housing can be difficult.

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Visby Medieval Week - link
Koenix - link
Akayashi Sai watercolour brush pens - Jetpens

Visby - Summer evening sketch

This is the view I see from the back of a computing lab at HGO at this very moment. It's a beautiful, warm summer evening and it would seem that a family is having a garden party. What an idyllic picture of Swedish summer at it's best!

First post from Visby

There's quite a lot I want to talk about. Meeting with the wonderful Yosh and Soya of the Swedish manga collective Yokaj Studio for one, my courses in life drawing and concept art at Gotland University are others, but in the midst of settling in, starting a part time job and keeping up with coursework my time management has proved insufficient so for now I'll update with tonight's view of Visby.

I spent the day working at the university since their computers can handle a lot more than my little laptop. The university is right by the sea and as I started heading back the sun was just setting. Couldn't recall when I saw a sunset last, so I sat down on the wharf, watched the sun go down and sketched a family with two kids sitting on the pebble beach below me. It was very relaxing... just wish the sun hadn't sunk so fast. :)


It's very beautiful here. I feel like there's a new and wonderful scenery to discover every other day. Visby is a great vacation spot especially around early/mid June, before the bulk of the tourists invade. I hear there's quite some night life to be had here as well, although I've yet to experience that. :)

Relaxed

A bit of a play with shading and trying to go for a more realistic look than normal. Got a bit lazy in the ribcage area. Wasn't quite sure how to shade it.
No reference. Time taken: An hour+?

I just wanna live

Overheard at Clowns, a popular café in central Cambridge.

Sketches from China

A sketch I made while I was in China this summer...

It's from the Tang Dynasty Cultural Park in Xi An. The park is an artificial reconstruction of what the Tang dynasty supposedly would have looked like, so the impressive-looking buildings have no historical value. They are very shiny though.

The weather had been extremely hot and stuffy that day, but as dusk approached a rain cloud breezed past in the distance. For a moment the light took on the golden sheen which contrasted nicely against the dark clouds in the distance. Even though we didn't get any of the cooling rain, the wind took most of the heat away so it was a great evening to spend in the beautiful and uncharacteristically empty park.

Airport sketch

Airports are great places to draw people. There are usually a lot of subjects to choose from and if you're lucky you might even find sleepers! People waiting tend to be bored though, so there is usually some amount of fidgeting, but someone will always be reading the newspaper or a paperback book.

This is my sister at Changsha Airport in China, from July this year. Unfortunately, sleepers move occasionally as well. In this case she moved her arm just as I was in the middle of drawing it.

Tube Sketching

London has been my home for the last three years of studying at Imperial College. Not all of this time has been spent as wisely as it could have been. For one, I didn't realise the joy that is tube-sketching until just recently, after listening to one of Bobby Chiu's inspirational podcast episodes.



In less than two week's time my degree will be finished and I'm moving away from London. One of the things tube-sketching has made me realise is that people are all around you (duh), so hopefully I should be able to find unknowing prey wherever I go.

Thanks to Bobby Chiu for telling people about his subway sketching habits in Toronto and for sharing his thoughts on being an artist in general (his podcasts are highly recommended). If you're in the area, he invites anyone to join him.