Too many lines
September 29, 2017
My daughter and I went on a Sarah Cannell workshop. We sketched on the Waveney Sculpture trail with random sharpies, bearing in mind composition and strong lines. We then transfered the sketch in permanent ink and added a light, bright underpainting. We weren’t massively pleased with what we came physically home with, but our heads were full of ideas and things to try. I used too many lines in the sketches themselves and when I transfered them. I barely gave composition a thought and rushed putting on the paint and used too many colours. Apart from that, it was fine! Will post my daughter’s next time.
outside authority 
That is hard to do but good practice. I’m impressed.
I’m going to carry on trying to sketch with sharpies. I’ve bought some today for my daughter so she can have my old ones. I hope they’ll help me capture some tone and colour out and about.
Naw. Not too many for me…😎
Good answer!
the second one I especially like, it resonates with the slow mindfulness of raking leaves, almost from another time, at least the person seems almost Amish.
That was an amazing bronze sculpture and it was set beautifully in a grassed area with a broken down greenhouse in the background. Apparently the sculptor is/was at the time an apprentice. None really wanted to draw it, but actually they all came out well.
He is actually using a scythe. It’s hard to place him in time as my family still used one to cut long grass in the 70’s. It was quite a trip down memory lane. I always have a picture in my mind of my mum cutting grass in a dress. Now if some one made a sculpture of that, I don’t think it would be so popular as it doesn’t fit with popular nostalgia.
i think these current days, such a sculpture would be, for better or for worse, politicized.
You may be right
I think they’re brilliant. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Thank you, but it’s what I do best! No, it doesn’t last long, I can always find something positive in the end
Never! (too many lines that is). They look good to me, and yes, full of energy and ideas. (K)
Yes there’s something here. Looking forward to using sharpies again for sketching. Hope it will help me with tone and colour back in the studio. I have bought some new sharpies too to swap for my daughter’s old ones.
I love the energy and directness in these. I especially like 2 & 3. How did you transfer them? Just by copying? I wonder if one could just put paint on the original drawings?
I think I put my reply in the wrong box. It’s below!
Just free hand copying. I prefer the sketches to what I tried to do with them next. But they do have a vigour I’d love to capture in larger work
Thanks, I see how they relate now. Yes, that’s difficult to achieve.
Alot for a one day workshop!
Sketches carry ideas. They are not supposed to be finished pieces. I now have three sharpies.
I was thinking of these drawings today looking round another exhibition. I strongly recommend you going to the “Matisse in his studio” exhibition at the RA.
I’m on the mailing list and saw it, but don’t think I’ll be able to catch it. I usually think my sketches are ok, it’s developing those ideas where I feel I don’t do the initial spark justice
In the film Amadeus, the royal patron says of Mozart’s music “too many notes” …
I draw all the right lines, but not necessarily in the right order – Nearly what Eric Morecombe said to Andre Previn
I like the second one from the top best. My attention went directly to the person because he is framed by the trees and highlighted by the yellow. Very nice composition.
Thank you and it was the sketch with the least lines!
2, 7 fave and 9. Love the colour and line. Must be a ‘thing’ another friend posted old sketches of coloured crayon overpainted with watercolour today. Love both ideas, find black lines often too definite.
Leave me a link to your friend’s post, I’d love to see it. The sketch with the figure in it was not one any of us reliahed at the time, but sometimes the most challenging subjects can be the most interesting. I should learn from that! Re your point about black lines – that’s why I gave up on the landscape I posted under ‘trail by 53’ as I couldn’t dampen down the black trunks of the trees
If you have instagram check out kumimatsukawaart
I don’t have it, but have managed to see a few pictures without signing up – a street sketch and a vase of flowers I especially like.
[…] ink, moved around with water and covered over with conte crayon. That day, I adopted an idea from OA to limit myself instead to using just three felt tip […]