Sketchiness!

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking 'Sam, how come you don't do no sketches about town no more?'.  Surely it can't all be moustaches and pointing animals?  

Well in truth, yes it largely is at the moment.  But I have been doing a fair bit of observational drawing on the sly too.  Here is a quick sketch of a guy who walked past the pub I was sat in the other day.  Yes the cigarette was that long.  

This is a holding picture whilst I riffle through my sketchbooks to scan in the fruits of my labours...more soon...

Mo Live drawing!!

As I'm nothing if quick off the mark - here's some news about the cracking night I had, er, last Tuesday at  Movember 13's launch night at Koko in Camden!

I've gobbed off about Movember very recently, but I'll do it again...last year they raised (if memory serves) £92 million worldwide to raise awareness and fund research into Prostate and Testicular Cancer, and are now focussing their attentions on mental health as well...can't be bad.  So I was proud to boot on down to London (along with regular partner in crime Lauren Tobia) to be one for the artists doing live Gallery of Mo portraits for their launch night.

Before I go on, I have to confess to robbing many of these photos from GAllery of Mo's facebook page - check them all HERE!   The rest come from Lauren Tobia - click here! YOU CAN GET A MOTRAIT DONE OR OFFER YOUR ARTISTIC SERVICES HERE: http://www.galleryofmo.co.uk/

So back to it - There were a lot of VERY talented artists working peddle to the metal, but still (and quite rightly!) the queues were mahoosive.  So armed with pocket sketchbooks me and Lauren decided to entertain the waiting punters with speedy be-tached mug shots.  As you can see I also entertained them by looking like Bez with a sketchbook.

See what I mean...

I have a World's End Moment 

The Gallery of Mo crew did an ace job of running it all in the face of big crowds and deafening metal (thanks to house band Obey).

They also gave us beer and a T Shirt...

 

Lauren getting deep with her purpose...

Some satisfied (or at least not angry!) customers posing with me squiggles.

I have slight unfinished business, in that I didn't get to do any 'big' pics.  Bring on November 30th then - Bristol's Movember Gala night!

Your miserable and most unworthy scribe goes to Durham!

What a day I had yesterday!!  I was very honoured to be asked up to the Palace Green Library in Durham to do a workshop as part of their Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition (which is amazing by the way, as is its region wide programme of events - well worth checking out!).

When I arrived in Durham it was clear that this exhibition is a very big deal - there are signs and banners for it everywhere, and the town, which I'm getting to know and love more with each visit, has a really nice buzz about it.

Anyway, here's what I did - a live drawn Lindisfarne Gospels timeline, taking you through the background of why it was made, who made it and how, and the ripping yarn of how it came to settle in Durham for hundreds of years...

Now, I say 'here's what I did'...but it should read 'here's what we did'.  The whole point of it was that large parts of it would be filled in by kids, parents, grandparents (and exhibition staff!) who popped in, and they really didn't let me down!

I also brought quill pens, reed pens and silverpoint for kids to try out, but as you can imagine didn't have much time for photogramaphising, so you'll have to imagine the chaos that entailed.


Oooh and another thing - I got a brief ten minutes to look around the exhibition itself, and I'll say again, it is absolutely fantastic.  I got the history bug doing the 'Discover The Lindisfarne Gospels' book, and I learnt so much more in just a few minutes wandering round.  I saw the big book itself which was amazing, but my fave bit was seeing St Cuthbert's pocket bible, which was taken from his coffin when he was exhumed and (I think!) is the oldest book in England (Europe? The world? Calling all experts!!)  to have survived with it's original leather binding intact....kinda lovely.  Click here for some more 'must see's .  A top exhibition, staffed by people who love the subject, which has some kind of intrigue at most turns...I thoroughly recommend it.

A big thank you is in order to everyone there for an absolutely fantastic day.

Brillustration take Marksbury Road!

On Saturday morning a crack squad of Brillustrators turned up at Marksbury Road Library to set up our 'Brillustration Saturday Scribble'..but conditions was icy, so it was anyones guess as to whether anyone would come.  

So did they?  Blimey..yes they did!

The next 3 hours were a frenzy of drawing, cutting out, story telling, badge making, clandestine biscuit eating and even snowman making.  The library reckons we had about 70 'paying punters' (50p each with squash and a biccy chucked in can't be bad!), and it felt like all of them got stuck in.

There was the normal riot of colour, cool pictures and requests to draw dinosaurs (you know who you are!)...

....and we also managed to jazz up the (already pretty snazzy) kids area, with a rabble of cut-out characters parading all round the tops of the bookshelves.

Sean Julian explains how he always likes to get into character before drawing a bear.

Some kids deciding to 'go 3D'

A MASSIVE THANKS to the Friends of Marksbury Road Library and library staff for inviting us, making us feel so welcome and putting in a considerable amount of legwork themselves.  

HATS OFF also to Brillustrators Sean Julian, Lauren Tobia, Paula Bowles, Rob Starling, Sam Church and Louise Cunningham, and all the kids and parents who turned up and drew like fiends- YOU ARE ACE!

AND REMEMBER KIDS - USE YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY!

Brillustration do Waterstones in Bristol

If they ever remake 'The Usual Suspects' for CBeebies.....

This Saturday was a mad one, but in a very good way..near as dammit six hours of non stop scribbling in Waterstones window.  Only the six Brillustrators this time, and I think it would be fair to say there was a healthy degree of bricking it going on beforehand as the windows were bigger than usual (and there were more of them!).  

But my Brillustration chums stepped up to the plate in resounding fashion and I think it was one of our best efforts yet.  I've put some pictures of my contribution here...

..In the meantime I thoroughly recommend popping over to see more detailed pics of the whole thing on the Brillustration blog

Grade A Scoundrel Sean Julian steals my thunder with his amazing Beary Dieters pic.

Big thanks to all at Waterstones Bristol for bravely giving us free reign, and to the Brillustrators for being ace..especially the ones who (hem hem) whose photos of the day I've perloined..... MWOOHAHAAAH!

Life drawing at The Tobacco Factory

As any fool knows, if you are to draw cartoon lions with any degree of competence, it is essential that you first develop a decent understanding of the human form..namely by going to lifedrawing sessions.

Now for the record I had got a bit bored of lifedrawing.  Poses seemed to be the same wherever I went (Hand on hip...check.  Hands on head...check.  Sat on floor with head on knee....and so on) and they didn't seem to relate to things people actually do (eg interact with the world around them).  So I was a tad sceptical when I first went to the Tobacco Factory to do their class...but hats off - it's ace!!

Michelle Cioccoloni who organises it actually seems to think about what she gets the models to do and why - she brings in ref pictures to give people inspiration;  the models often lean on things, pull ropes etc to show muscle tension and balance, and wear clothes or are draped in fabric so you can see how material hangs/folds.

I've included a couple of pictures from Monday's session...I have chosen the ones least likely to make your granny blush!

A slight return..

Nearly forgot..on Tuesday last week I got asked back to Ashton Gate by my son's teacher to do a picture of Zeus for a display in the classroom (Greek Myths and Legends being their term project).   All in all a fun way to spend a lunchbreak!  Thanks son for filling me in on what Zeus looks like, could have been messy otherwise...

Brillustration and Ashton Gate do book week

Dammit I've been itching to tell you about this for ages, but time has been against me (so many cartoon lemurs to draw!) and photos have been like hens teeth (massive thankyou to everyone that had the presence of mind to take a camera and let me use your photos!) .  A couple of weeks back I organised for a bunch of my Brillustration chums and me to descend on Ashton Gate Primary School in Bristol to help them celebrate book week.  

I've posted about it at length on the Brillustration site (and will do again as more pics come in) so I won't  go on about it too much here, but suffice to say there was a bit of this...

 ...a bit of this (I'm nothing if not a paper nerd...I also have thumbs to be proud of)..

a fair bit of this..

And a lot of this!

 It was mad week, but an incredibly enjoyable one.  The good folks at Ashton Gate are probably getting bored of me telling them how great they are, but I'll say it again...you're ace!  Of course I should also gently remind the kids not to get too good with the drawing...some of us have a living to make you know.....

Dress rehearsals!

Saw the cast in their costumes for the first time on Monday.  They looked amazing, but it did make me chuckle to start off with - having seen everyone rehearsing in the civvies for most of the month it felt a little like seeing all your workmates in fancy dress (hold that image if you work in an office).

The last couple of days have been 'tech rehearsals', so there's been (mercifully for me) a bit of hanging round whilst lights, sound, angle of approach for a quick dispatching, etc are got right.  But there's still a lot of movement on stage, so I just get down what I can before they move on.   I would also like to say in my defence that it was dark where I was sat...

This one below I'm particularly pleased with - I've been trying and failing to draw Jack Whitam (Edmund) for ages, and this is the only time I think I've come even close.  There are a few other members of cast and crew who, through no fault of theirs, I can't draw for toffee.  You may know who you are, in which case sorry, and I will try to remedy the situation asap!

Today's scenes were all of the 'blimey it's all going off' variety.  Whilst they've stopped a long way short of having to issue a 'first two rows will get wet' warning, and it's all tastefully done,  I'd recommend perhaps just having a light salad as your meal before the play.  Needless to say it makes for cracking  theatre, but poor old Gloucester!