Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
I'm getting a kick out of this Hahnemühle Grey Book. It forces me use a different technique every time. My usual materials don't really, as you can see in this and this example where majorly buckled pages are a big feature.
The results are a little bit better this time. The top sketch was created using a soft black Cretacolour Nero pencil, with water colour combined with white gouache applied to help pop the pink out from the background. Wet media isn't exactly the right thing to use on the lighter paper so below I've tried combining the same pencil with a white Posca acrylic marker. The result is much better - almost flat...
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