Blog Award! Me?

Thank you Mike for my nomination for the Blog Award! I am honored to be a mentor. Although, I could take some lessons from you as well. This is a heck of a way to get me to update my much neglected blog.

I now have to select 7 blogs which I feel should be nominated. This is not so easy because there are so many blogs which demonstrate the sketching/paintings style and skill which I draw inspiration from. Most of the following blogs are already on my ‘Amazing’ list:

Not in any special order
Jeanette Jobson - Illustrated Life
Karen Blados - Sketch Blog
France Bellville - Wagonized
Juj. – Everything Is Contextual
Terry Banderas – Ink and Watercolor
Susan Buchanan - an Open [sketch]Book
Miguel Herranz – free[k]hand

To accept:
Right click on the award to save it to your computer. Then you can insert it into your blog.
The rules of acceptance are:
Put the logo on your blog.
Add a link to the person who awarded you.
Nominate 7 other blogs.
Add links to those blogs on yours.
Leave a message for you nominees on their blogs.

Watchfull Eyes

I thought I would sneak in another post before I head for the airport - off to India.

It seemed as though everywhere I looked I saw surveillance cameras while I was in England. The were on street posts in London, they were on lamp posts in towns along the railroad, and they were on all sides of the Six Bells Pub.

This is sketch is of cameras I saw in London. Done with the Pilot Hi-Tec-C pen and washed with a waterbrush.
This sketch of cameras in a town along the railroad is also done with the Pilot Hi-Tec-C pens, but without the wash.

New Pens Put to the Test

For Christmas last year my son gave me a set of Pilot Hi-Tec-C .3 mm gel pens. The set has 10 different colors. When I learned of these pens I thought they were waterproof. But on experimentation I found that they were not. At first I was disappointed but later I decided it was a good thing. Here is a photo of some of the pens. These are not easily found in the U.S. of A.This is a simple color chart I made and used a waterbrush to create a wash effect. I found that the Blue and Yellow did not wash as well as the other colors.This is a drawing I made of some chimney pots while I was in England. I used the Black pen and a waterbrush to create the wash effect.

Back Home for a Short Visit

Well, I am back home for a short visit before I dash off to another part of the world. My London trip was mostly business and I seemed to get very little time to myself. But I did take time over the weekend to tour London and do a little sketching.

This sketch is a tree in the church yard next to the Six Bells Pub, where we had dinner several times. The tree had been cut back reveling very gnarled limbs. There were tufts of leaves indicating new growth here an there.