Sketches..

This is the best sketch of the Alhambra I did in the end and I'm reasonably but not completely happy with it. Reasonably happy because I'd got out of the habit of drawing and painting real things and took an art course in January to get my eye back in, which has clearly worked; but not completely happy because there is absolutely no sense of the scale and monumentality of the buildings in this picture. 

And this is an ongoing theme: as you can see here in my sketch of the torso of Michelangelo's David (done in the V&A as part of that drawing class with the Art Academy):

I am roughly the height of the plinth that David stands on, and the statue is of course enormous. But I seem to have drawn it as though I were looking at it straight on, rather than up at an angle.  Which would be a neat trick if it was on purpose, I suppose, but it isn't, and it throws the perspective off. 

So at least I know what I need to work on. 

Obligatory shots of the Alhambra

I have also tried to draw it, but luckily I haven't got a scanner with me, so I don't have to post it until I've had another go. Or six.

BtLS is in Spain

Painting - Sagrada Familia

Just a quick pencil and paint sketch of the Basilica in Barcelona. I'm not 100% happy with it - the colours are off a bit - but I'm going with for now. 

For those people who care about these things - which includes me - I drew this with a plain HB pencil then used a Winsor and Newton pocket box, with the extendable paintbrush included, to colour and highlight. Some additional bright blue was created with a Pilot erasable v-pen fountain pen. The book itself is a Seawhite travel journal, with lined pages one side and plain paper the other.

And I used the vignette function on my computer to keep the detail of the pic and blur the writing on the other page so it wouldn't be a distraction.

Barcelona

Another place I want to go back to. In addition to the things in these photos there are the parks, the views, the beach, the caffe con leche, the cablecars, the castle..