The Construction of a Panoramic Illustration
I recently started working on a new panoramic view of London and thought it might be interesting to show a couple of the stages I go through when working on these pieces. There are a number of remarkable photographic panoramas to be found online, but I didn’t want to just draw a straight copy of [...]
Sketch of London
Here’s a sketch I did last year; it was the first draft for this piece and I decided to restart it after the buildings became increasingly squashed together. Retrospectively, I rather like it, which is a common problem with my work; I frequently find old sketches which I infinitely prefer to the pieces I eventually [...]
Bird’s Eye Illustrated Map of Reading
Here’s a quick look at a work in progress of mine; a bird’s eye view map of Reading, Berkshire: There’s some close up images after the page break:
Manchester City Centre
Another work in progress; this time slightly less resolved than the drawings of Covent Garden, Ponte Vecchio and New York. feel this image is a little flat and would probably benefit from some darkened windows and shady areas to some of the buildings, but thought it best to scan the piece at this stage to [...]
Ponte Vecchio in Florence
Pen and ink drawing of the Ponte Vecchio, a fascinating Medieval bridge in Florence. I was aiming to emphasise the light and shade of this scene a little, whilst still using line only, rather than introducing any colour to the piece. I’m not completely happy with it yet and may decide to work into it [...]
Vlad Dracul
Here’s a drawing I did of Vlad Dracul which is featured in the current issue of Ballad Of. This illustration reflects my love for all thing relating to the eccentric Wallachian prince, a topic I explored in a little more detail here.
New York City Hall
This line drawing shows New York City Hall; I’ve not finished with this piece yet, but the majority of the drawing has been completed, so I decided to post it, while I finish off a few other projects:
Panoramic Drawing of Budapest
I’ve wanted to draw Budapest for a while; but it’s always harder working on an illustration of an area you have never visited – one of the reasons I frequently draw parts of London is that I know these spaces fairly well and have already sketched them and thought about how to represent them. So, [...]
Neal’s Yard in Covent Garden, London
When I lived in London for a year, I had two jobs in the Covent Garden area and I spent a lot of my lunch breaks drawing Neal’s Yard and other places in the Seven Dials area. I love the relaxed, lively atmosphere in this part of London and so tried to get some of [...]
Bird’s Eye View of Reading
Here is a tiny section from an illustrated map I’m working on at the moment. The map shows Reading, in Berkshire and this is 1/16th of the total piece:
Bird’s Eye view of Brighton
This is a work in progress and shows Brighton town centre in 3/4 bird’s eye view. I also started to add some hand written street names, which I rather like the look of:
Pen and Ink Drawing of Torquay
I drew this in 2007, when we went to Torquay for a job interview. It was created using a fountain pen with waterbased ink on watercolour paper.
Panoramic View of London
360 degree panoramic illustration of the City of London. Pen and Ink on Paper. 2010
Kato Paphos
This sketch was drawn from a hillside in Pano Paphos, which overlooks much of Kato Paphos. I was quite shocked when I first saw the lower town from here as I had no idea of just how many flats there were in that section; when you view a city from ground view you get a [...]
Barack Obama
It’s rare I venture into the world of portraiture, but every so often the mood takes me. This piece was drawn a couple of years ago and inspired by a newspaper I had lying around. I used watercolour and pen and ink and also employed a fairly bespoke technique of scratching the paper with the [...]
Another London Skyline
I quite liked the idea of taking a more graphic approach to this subject and may try a version in colour at some point.
Line Drawings
Here’s a few line drawings I’ve done recently: The first sketch is of the family we rent our flat from at their pre Christmas barbeque; it’s held in a garage opposite our flat: The next piece is a diagram explaining how triangulation works. I won’t talk too much about this drawing as I have plans [...]
Problems with Perspective Drawing.
The main problem with trying to depict a building – or any other figure or object – in a drawing is that we are trying to show the three dimensional world on a two dimensional plane and so are burdened with too much information, one dimension too many. Three point perspective can provide a satisfactory [...]
John Martyn
One of my favourite musicians. All my best paintings were made while I listened to Solid Air and they probably express how much I like his work far better than I could explain in words. John Martyn builds up his sound very gently and the effect is tremendously powerful and intense; cross hatching seemed to [...]
