One Sketch 334) Route 66 Gas Station

Get your kicks
On Route 66.
Shame about global warming.

Yes, the prompt for today was Route 66. What else could I do other than an American Gas station?

One sketch 216) #inktober2018 prompt 27 - Thunder -

The thunderbird
Is a funny fowl
It flies from street to street
It breathes in air
And spits out fumes
Which do smell none too sweet.

Sorry, nothing else occurred in the way of verse. Ford Thunderbird, one of those iconic American car which began with the Chevy Corvette, and culminated in the Ford Mustang.

One Sketch #140) Old Renault Four

I can't say that I've felt before
Much feeling for a Renault Four
And yet this Renault seems quite fun
While baking in the Spanish Sun
A feeling that it's hard to foster
Even on this Spanish Costa
But to this aging Renault car, though
I say my Costa Blanca Bravo!

I actually first saw this car yesterday. I made a mental note, and popped back today. Yes, it was there, hence the sketch. I can't say that I've ever given much thought to the Renault Four previously, but I have to have respect for a car that must be between 40 - 50 years old which is still on the road.

Saturday 11th August One Sketch #139) San Isidro

The town bakes in the morning sun
Time slows to a gentle crawl
As we creep towards siesta.

I ventured out on my own by about 11:30 on Saturday morning, knowing that I had a relatively short window of time before it would become too hot to do absolutely anything at all. I made the quick line and wash sketch of the town , and then went and sat in my favourite public space in San Isidro. Again, it's a place that I've sketched before.
The local train station here is very new, and was only built within the last few years. Now, when they demolished the older station which stood there, they re-erected the platform canopy, and the wall of the station building which faced onto the platform, in a street in the town. I’ve never been there for a performance but I understand that they do have music there sometimes. There are a couple of benches though, and it was pleasant to sit in the shade of the canopy and sketch a couple of the houses opposite. It would have been very pleasant if not for the flies. Both elbows and my right calf copped it from them, and are itching like hell this morning.

Sketching Tips 8) Sketching Vehicles

I don’t think there’s any special skill involved in sketching vehicles, but maybe what makes a difference is whether you like vehicles for their own sake or not. For example, there’s a world of difference between a sketch which has cars in it: -

And a sketch of a car: -

In the top picture it’s the footbridge which is the star. The cars, which are not particularly detailed and not brilliantly drawn, are just there to give the footbridge context and scale. In the second picture, the street furniture, the wall and the car behind are just outlines, which serve to highlight the car itself which is the star of the picture. If the cars are just a background feature, then you really don’t need many lines to suggest the shape of a car to the eye of the beholder. 

So, when you’ve decided that the car – or tram, bus or train – is the star of the picture, what then? Well, the first thing you need to think of is composition, and what I mean by that is, where are you going to put the viewer in relation to the vehicle. I’ll give a couple of examples to help explain this.  In this picture :-

- you can see that we, the viewers, are looking down onto the Bubble Car. This is appropriate, since it helps emphasise the diminutive size of the car which is one of its most interesting features. By the same token in this picture,

we’re looking up at the train. Our eyeline is roughly level with the bottom of the door nearest too us. This, and the rather extreme perspective serve to emphasise the train’s great size, power and speed.

Once you’ve worked out the viewer’s viewpoint in relation to the vehicle, then it’s worth spending some time deciding just how you’d like to contextualise the vehicle. I’ll explain that. Both of the vehicles above appear on the page themselves without any background. That’s because in those pictures I’m only interested in the qualities of the vehicle itself, and didn’t feel the need to contextualise them. However, adding background can help your sketch say more about the vehicle, and it’s not a bad thing to spend a bit of time considering just how much background, if any, you want to use. For example:-

The very light foliage in the background of this beautiful Jaguar XK120 conjures up an image of driving down summer country lanes with the top down. On this next picture:-

the railings and shaded shoreline are just enough to place this ice cream van at the seaside. With this Swansea tram:-

- I felt that the edge of the platform, the passengers and the pole carrying the cable overhead were enough to contextualise it. This can be compared with :-

Where I really wanted to include all the background details to help put it within a place and time within my childhood. This picture isn’t about the train so much as its about my memories of using the Tube, taking it to interesting places to see and things to do.

With this sketch, if you take away the airport buildings then it’s just a single decker bus, so the context is important to this sketch.

As for sketching in the vehicle itself, as with anything else you sketch it is a matter of looking, looking, looking, of getting the shapes right, and applying the shade in the right amount, in the right places. It sounds simple when you say it like that. Yet it needn’t be that complicated either. If you decide to go for a heavy contrast between areas of light and shade, you can end up with something like this:-

It's an effective depiction of a tank engine, even though the train itself really wasn’t a very complicated sketch, having so many areas of complete shading.

Of course, if you use more subtle shading, then you can make what looks to be a more accomplished sketch. This one underneath is not actually that well drawn – the front end of the boiler for example just isn’t quite right, but it still looks pretty good, I think, partly because of the amount of platform detail, and the contrast between the dark underside with the wheels, and the more lightly shaded boiler. 

Of course, if you’re feeling really confident and have time to really work at the sketch, then you can go to town on detail.

If you were to strip away the careful shading, what you’d be left with is still quite a complicated sketch, but nowhere near as complicated as it looks.

For me the attraction of sketching and painting steam engines is that they put a lot more of what they’ve got in the shop window than other types of train, or road vehicles. Look at even a rather simple tank engine and you’re still going to see pipes, domes, handles, and all other kinds of interesting bumps and protruberances.

Going back to my earlier point about viewpoint, you’ll notice that with each of these the viewer is looking up at the train, albeit to a slightly lesser extent than in the diesel train above. 

A few random points:-

·       When you’re sketching a car, bus, tram or train perspective and viewpoint are every bit as important as they are when you’re sketching buildings. If the viewer is looking up at a vehicle, this emphasises size and power, which can be enhanced by exaggerating the perspective more than normal.

·       You can always choose not to sketch in any background to the vehicle. However, if you just sketch in outlines of the background it can give the vehicle a context, while at the same time highlighting it.

·       Even really complicated vehicles, like steam locomotives, can be simplified through the use of areas of total shade, leaving you with a very simple set of outlines to sketch. Careful use of various gradations of shading can really give your sketch depth, body and definition.

One Sketch #95) Nefertiti's Bust

A cultural icon
Or a gross act of theft?
Or both?

I was reading an article today about what are allegedly the greatest examples of, and I quote, archaeological plunder, and this was one of them. t's the famous bust of Nefertiti. I was intrigued because - a) I actually saw it for real in the Neues Museum last year when I went to Berlin, and b) I've long been a supporter of the movement to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece, which is a similar and celebrated case.

One Sketch #56) Ford Zodiac - Cardiff Classic Car Show

Unreliable, slow
thirsty, and prone
to breaking down.
For all of that
Not only wines
Are vintage.

I've been wanting to sketch a classic car on the spot for some time now. I wasn't planning another trip out sketching after yesterday in front of City Hall, but if the mountain won't come to Muhammad. . . I reckon that this Ford Zodiac is slightly more than 60 years old. So actually it's older than me.

One Sketch #52) Bubble Car

I think an Isetta
Is really cool
So never mind
The ridicule

Yes, I remember seeing a few of these in London when I was a very small boy, and I've always liked them, and two other German Bubble cars, the Messerschmidt Kabineroller and the Heinkel Trojan very much. Since I sketched my other dream car, the Jaguar XK120 a week or two ago I decided to even things up a bit.

Yes, I did make this sketch on Wednesday, but it's been a busy week. For the last three days I've had to make quick sketches at lunchtime at work, and haven't had time to post them until now.