Snatching Sketching Victory From The Jaws Of Defeat

I cannot abide an ugly page in my sketchbook, whether it’s because I have abandoned a sketch due to adverse weather or time constraints, or because my subject is uninspiring and isn’t going to cut the mustard. In today’s article I tell you about a few sketches that came good in the end with a little persistence!

Friday 24th May

It’s a lovely afternoon in Galway. My girl Liv has been asking all day about going for a swim. As a sailor with a decade of experience sailing here in Galway and around Ireland, one would think she had got the idea about tides and how they work, but it appears not. I explain for the umpteenth time, very patiently, that she can go for a swim if she likes, but that there is no water and she will be wallowing in mud. By five o’clock there will be enough water to dive in – she has calculated her height plus the depth of water that will be there by then – but there’s a cold breeze, and despite the warm sun I am not hugely enthusiastic about swimming. We were both in for a swim a few days earlier and it was lovely – heavenly, in fact – but today I am not feeling it.

“We could go for a swim,” I say to Liv, “or I could just draw you instead.”

“Draw me!” says Liv. She loves to be drawn, and I have over 40 sketches of her, from the time she was about three years old. Liv stirring chocolate sauce with her grandad. Liv in a giant hole she and her brother dug on a beach in Mauritius. Then the pandemic, and many more sketches: talking on the phone to her similarly-confined friend, the two of them distance-embroidering, needlepointing….etc etc., and in the end two calendars and a “photo” book just featuring Liv and various family members in ink and watercolour.

I think that photo book would be something I would save in a fire, because there’s something about a sketch of a loved one that warms the soul when you look at it, unlike photos, which I find make me rather nostalgic.

I also love sketching Liv because I love sketching people, no matter what relationship I have with them, or none. People are infinitely fascinating, and I love the challenge of capturing their curves, the light on their bodies even as they move, the delicate shadows and highlights that change in an instant with the passing sun. I filmed the process of sketching Liv, as my ambition is to put everything I know onto my YouTube channel (more on that in a little bit): I only cut out the bit where I sigh heavily and tell Liv that if she moves her arm again, it’s just not going to work. You can see the video here: https://youtu.be/TgzjzkffhHU?si=Q6zY5oaYVZVhFOAQ

Reuben is a bit hot, and slinks under the sun lounger to cool off. I include him in the sketch too.

Saturday 25th May

I have one page left in my April-May sketchbook, and I think a sketch of the red hot pokers growing outside the living room window would be nice. They are seasonal, and they might not be around when I am back in Galway at the end of the week. Liv comes out to join me: she is going to sketch too. She looks at the red hot poker flowers.

“I’m not feeling it,” she says. “They’re just not inspiring me.”

I tell her that regardless of whether they’re inspiring, we’re doing them. Then I look more closely and see that they aren’t half as beautiful up close: kind of knobbly and a little worn, even the fresh ones. Still, I intend to sketch them. Liv heads slightly down the lawn and finds a hot pink rosa rugosa to sketch from the thick rose hedge that borders our property. Before we start, we hear a sound behind us; we turn around, and there beyond the thick row of lime and hazel trees is a row of cows peering through the leaves. They have wandered over to see what we’re up to and seem very curious. They are delightful: there are black ones with velvety, glossy heads, russet ones with glorious redhead curls on their foreheads and white-faced ones with pink circles around their long-lashed eyes. They have deep brown eyes and steady gazes. I am happy to be here with them, and they are in no hurry.

They stand in silence for the longest time, watching me sketch them. Or, more correctly, watching me: I could be lying there asleep and they would stare just as intently. After a good hour, they start to jostle each other and snort a little, but they’re still almost silent, and the harmony between them is striking. They look, and seem, very gentle.

Liv’s rose has a bug on it and she makes sure to record it for posterity…

After we have completed our sketches, it’s time to start class. It’s the last class I will ever conduct on a Saturday over Zoom, in this format.

But I’m Not Going Far!

My energy has been flagging of late with one thing and another – just life stuff – and I without energy I can’t be creative. And then I won’t have a livelihood! I have decided to give everything I’ve got to YouTube so I really hope you find something rewarding there. I am really excited about it – to make my videos so far all I have had is a phone and a wobbly hand to hold it, so the only way is up.

I will also be offering video-on-demand courses going forward, which I will film and edit and make available, by theme: café sketching, people sketching, perspective, that kind of thing. Four years online and three hundred classes (as well as nine years teachng in person) has shown me what the pain points are with my students, and I hope to be able to answer those questions and solve the challenges. Please don’t be shy to share what you would like help with…there’s so much beauty out there in so many guises, just waiting to be captured by you, in your way! The fact that you’re reading this is a great start but do make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel for all the latest news and announcements.

You can subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@roisincure

The last class I conduct is a funny one: the sketch I am using as my subject was done over two days, the first session having been forcibly abandoned by hailstones and a deluge. The resulting half-sketch made a sad, sorry scene:

Ink spotches. Colour runs. Ink smears. A veritable catastrophe…So I went back to finish the sketch as soon as I had the chance, which was three weeks later, by which time the rain had stopped.

If you look at both sketches, you can see there are lots of things I couldn’t change, but I used many of the tricks of the trade (well, my tricks!) to fix it up.

Here’s a list of the elements that cleaned it all up for me:

• I thought about the values: how to make the seagulls stand out, how to make the bulildings dark and solid against the sky.
• The sky and its clouds…Phthalo Blue made a clean, clear patch of blue between the clouds.
• Adding lots of life in the form of seagulls brought vitality. I drew them all at once, before they got on with their day.
• Colour harmony: the soft sludgy green was perfect for grass, for the bush behind the houses and for the clumps of weeds.
• Colour repetition always works – the yellow beaks, yellow houses and yellow wheel clamp popped nicely as a group.
• The window panes of both cars and buildings always look lovely in a Phthalo Green / Payne’s Grey blend.
• The perspective was measured by eye, which is always less wooden (and less accurate) than following the rules.

I called the class Everything, Everywhere or something like that, because it has nearly everything (it’s missing close-ups of people and reflections but not a lot else). The students made amazing sketches and it was a special class – with the subject being the heart of the very city that drew many of them to me in the first place. (The second edition of Galway In Sketches In Stories comes out in June, but this sketch was not made in time to make it into its pages!)

Monday 27th May

Liv and I are in Bray in Co. Wicklow, staying with my father for a few days. I have a problem: I have run out of blank pages in my sketchbook and the only one left has a half-started sketch on it, worse, much worse, than the one that was abanadoned by hailstorms. I started it while waiting to meet my webmaster because he was a few minutes late, but no sooner had I started than he arrived. I have a spare A6 sketchbook, but although it’s also my favourite brand – Hahnemühle – it’s the 200g rather than the 250g 100% cotton version, and once you try the latter there’s no going back, even though it is expensive (luckily I can get high on my own supply). I cut a scrap of paper out of the 200g book to stick on top of the offending lines, but I can’t find any glue stick anywhere in my mother’s art room. She has everything but a glue stick though, and I find double-sided sticky tape that does the job almost as well. It’s nice out, and we head down to the Seafront for a little sketching. Liv is dubious about the likely success of my page repair job, but I am confident.

Liv and I sit in the wind and sun and sketch. She asks me how I would do a sky and I jump to a demo of sky to explain, whereupon she immediately tells me she wants to do it her way, not mine, so my sky is hurried and a bit blotchy and Liv’s is unhurried and smooth. Grrr! But I have seagulls and she doesn’t so we’re even. Then again my railings are misaligned and hers aren’t. She says that’s her architectural training. Grrr!

That’s it for now! If you’d like to take a TRUE BEGINNERS course with me then you will catch the very last five-day course I will do live, from 4th to 8th June 2024 – that’s right, next week! – and I will show you all you need to know to get you on your way. It might look like fun, and it is, but it’s a Trojan horse to sneak some amazing techniques into your repertoire! Book your spot here: https://roisincure.com/product/learn-ink-and-watercolour-through-fun-illustration-4th-8th-june/

I also have two places left in my in-person course this coming August so check that ouit too…the booking form is now live here: https://roisincure.com/product/colour-and-charm-in-the-west-of-ireland-workshop-15-17th-aug/

I hope to see you soon…and happy sketching!

I will finish with the crab sketch Liv did from last week’s seashore sketch on the far side of the country…