Ian Fennelly

This is a bit of a long and not all that interesting story, but I'm going to tell it anyway. You know about Sketching Every Day, yes? Well, one of the things that I do tend to do is to check out the prompts which are coming up for the next few days. Four times a month of so we have a different featured artist. You can take the prompt however you like. You can copy one of their works, or make your own work in the same style, or make a portrait of the artist, whatever. Coming up on the 29th December we have Ian Fennelly. I didn't know his work before, but he is simply the most brilliant urban sketcher.

Now, you may recall in the past I have explained how unhappy I am with my lack of ability to use watercolour effectively when making an urban sketch. So it came to mind that, since I'm going to be making an Ian Fennelly copy, or at the very least an Ian Fennelly inspired sketch, I could try to copy what he did in an urban sketch which I love, and hope to learn something in the process. Have I learned anything? Well, maybe, although I think it's the sort of thing which is going to take more than just the one lesson before it is going to sink in. Still, I'm very pleased with what I've made today. This is a copy of one of Ian Fennelly's pictures of the Eastgate in the city of Chester. And no, it is NOWHERE near as good as the original. The main thing is it's miles better than anything I would have come up with by myself. Looking dispassionately, I think you can see that I'm still being too timid with colour, and this is something to take forward into the next attempt.