234. Scaredycat Owl Mug

Various Pilot G-tec C4 pens, Staedtler 0.05 fine liner and

Unipin 0.5 pen (plus Tombow brush pen) in

Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook, 8.5"x5.5"

Mug sketching with my friend Rachel; she has the loveliest mugs! The owls on the actual mug don't look anywhere near as scared as this one; oh dear!  I learned something though: there was more intricate decoration underneath each owl but the design was finished in a very limited colour palette and narrow tonal values which totally calmed down the busy-ness of the design - very clever!

233. Goodbye Gelato Heaven!

Derwent Coloursoft Pencils and Pilot G-tec C4 pen in

Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5"

Gelato Heaven will be closing for good tomorrow :((  Where else would you be given a container of water by the staff each week so that you can sketch and use your watercolours?! Thank you lovely Gelato staff! Very sad!

232. Hampstead Heath Sketch

Lamy Safari fountain pen and Tombow brush pen

in Stillman & Birn Epsilon (lovely smooth) sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2)

Hampstead Heath is right around the corner to the Royal Free Hospital where I had a treatment on Wednesday. Decided to have a rest in front of the river and pulled out my sketchbook before going home.  (I made a B&W copy and added colour to it yesterday; will post later.)

231. A Little Chamber Music at the NPG

Staedtler 0.05 pigment liner and Unipin 0.05 fine line pen

in Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2)

Last Friday evening, I popped into the 'Drop in Drawing' session at the National Portrait Gallery. The subject was supposed to be 'Striking a Pose' but a few of us followed the sound of music to another room and sketched some young and gifted musicians who had put on a little chamber music. We had a great point of view; due to the openings on either side of each gallery, we were able to congregate right behind the musicians and face the audience which (unless you are in a choir or at a bandstand) is an unusual viewpoint.

I love diving straight in with ink as you're then committed to each stroke yet I find that, if I use a fine pen, it's easy to go over it lightly again to correct/straighten if necessary.

I was fascinated by the feet of the people on the front row so started sketching them from the floor upwards but the music came to an end and, after a brief chat with a couple of the musicians, we dispersed, hence the disembodied figures in the audience. A great evening.

230. Chocolate Lover? Nope!

W&N Watercolours, Unipin and Tombow pens with 

Pilot Super Colour Gold and Silver pens and Chinagraph pencil

in Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2)

That's right; I don't like chocolate!

229. Kitchen Challenge

Pilot G-Tec C4 pen in

Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2)

Our latest challenge is to 'Draw something that's in the kitchen'. I opened the herb and spice cupboard but didn't have much time to sketch before going to work so later in the evening I filled the gap with some wording.

228. Gift Sketchbook for MD

Hardbound Sketchbook, 5.5" x 5.5"

(for the process, please click 'Bookbinding' in the 'Labels' list to the right)

227. Table Decoration

Pilot G-tec C4 Pen and W&N Watercolours

in Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, 8.5" x 5.5" (x2)

Sketch of a little table decoration in Gelato's and a quotation by Robert Brault.

226. Throwback Thursday - Sketchbook

Quarter Bound Hardback Sketchbook, 5.5" x 5.5"

Felt I wanted to post something but wasn't sure what so I've dug out these photos of a sketchbook which was a gift for an artist whose birthday was on Valentine's Day. As in some of my other sketchbooks, I stitched in two types of paper so inserted identifying notes.

Bookcloth made for the 'Quarter'

 

225. Pleased as Punch!

Two 'Quarter Bound' Hardback A5 Sketchbooks:

A5 Chunky (laying flat) and...

… A5 Slim

Levitating in my office

You probably know me by now - when I bind a book, I want it to be bound traditionally, to last for decades and also to be fit the purposes of the recipient. For a while now, I have been researching how to achieve 'lay flat' binding in a chunky book with a rigid (not rounded) spine - a ton of stuff has been written about it on bookbinding forums, etc.

It has been suggested that the only way to achieve it is to use or buy one of three machines which seals it with an adhesive. Apparently, the only way to achieve a 'lay flat' effect by hand-stitching is to use coptic binding but, although the books are absolutely beautiful to look at, not everyone wants to work with all that stitching down the middle of some of the pages. I felt I had to try to perfect it by hand and have been scrutinising numerous case bound, stitched books to see the difference between those that lay flat and those that dip in the middle.

I was recently asked to make a book with a lot of pages which, again, would contain some drawing paper and some watercolour paper - the paper I used is the lovely Fabriano 5 watercolour paper so it's quite thick and thus weighty. She chose her fabrics from my little selection and I made up some bookcloth. (The spot is for someone else.)

Anyway, I am pleased to report that thanks to a lot of research and some experimentation (as well as prayer!), it has finally worked! Yippee!

I threw in the smaller book, as a gift, which contains Fabriano 4 fairly smooth watercolour paper that she can use on the train or at sketchcrawls, etc., where you often have to stand and sketch/paint and, instead of the ribbon close used for the chunky one (which would be fiddly in the field), I put ribbon along the edges of the 'quarter' so it would match it's sibling.

 Making book cloth

Bookcloth made!

Textblocks stitched and ready for the 'chunky' and

one ready for the spotted bookcloth

Handmade 'stamp' in back endpapers

Ooops! Forgot to rotate the photo.

A few more random pics of the chunky...

 

(two bookmarks for ease of reference)

… and of the slim one.

Thanks for reading this far; I do appreciate you all!

224. Still Life at the Pastel Society

Schmincke and Unison Soft Pastels plus Charcoal

on Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper, 9.5" x 12"

The image below (minus the ghostly charcoal leaves and flower in the centre) is how it looked when I left the Pastel Society. However, I felt it needed something to unify the two plants so added more leaves and a central flower.

223. Violinist 3

Schmincke and Unison Soft Pastels plus Charcoal

on Daler Rowney Murano paper, 16" X 12"

This is the final figure drawing I did (before drawing the still life set up) and, this time, I waited for her to start a new piece of music then quickly started sketching her.