Record stores & Coffee Shops

Faces of Folkestone - Panorama Sketches

These three images were sketched over a simple grid, designed for spacing across three tiles on my instagram feed. It was an interesting experiment in composition, to constrict my drawing area to such a small, letterboxed space on the page.

The images weren’t preplanned, I drew up a few pages of templates then looked for opportunities to fill them whilst sketch-booking at lunchtimes or weekends.

The first two were drawn in Steep Street, an aptly named cafe at the top of the winding Old High Street in Folkestone. The third was captured in Hot Salvation, my local record shop, on this year’s Record Store Day.

Scroll to the second page of the gallery to see the process from blue/redline pencil to ink and colour.

Retro & Curiosity

Faces of Folkestone - Retro & Curiosity

These character sketches were drawn from life in Folkestone, then inked and coloured over the following days. There is a particular spot where these two and their friends (some caught in less successful scribbles around the page) convene daily to natter, smoke and drink tea. As one leaves, another will arrive, almost as if relieving them of duty, a changing of the guards at a remote station post.

This presents a great opportunity for rich character studies - capturing their personalities in conversation and the subtler details of their posing and clothes. I love the little dog with the bright purple cardigan.

The Bear-Dragon

‘A Bear-Dragon’ - Saturday morning dressing-up and sketching

My son turns three this year, and as is often said of young children, he is a constant source of inspiration and entertainment. This image was sketched from life one Saturday morning, when he had demanded to wear his bear hood dressing gown over the top of the dragon costume he was already sporting. Animal costumes of this kind never fail to remind me of Max in ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. When my son struck this pose, lounging casually against an old chair, I grabbed a pencil and worked fast to create a sketch that I could develop later.

That evening I inked and coloured the piece, using a photo for colour reference. I enjoyed the challenge of suggesting different textures and materials, the felt of the dragon, the synthetic fur of the dressing gown, the bright orange plastic of the bin lorry tucked beneath the chair.

Passing Me By

Faces of Folkestone - Speed drawing from a cafe window

At the studio where I work, we have a weekly sketchbook day where members of the company meet up for lunch to sketch and draw. I have been using this as an opportunity to try out different techniques, as well as expand my range of character types.

These images are from the 10th of January 2019, when I challenged myself to do quick pencil sketches of passers-by. With only 5-10 seconds to observe each face, I concentrated on trying to capture an essence of each, then returned to them later to ink and colour those which worked best.