Ogres in Italy

b/w, colour, drawing, exhibition, painting, sketchbook, travel

A piece for the Orchinfabula exhibition at the National Archeological Museum in Paestum, Italy. As part of the Festival of Fairy Tales, the exhibition centered around the theme of myths and ogres.

Exploring mythology for this piece was a departure from my usual work, it’s nicely timed with the new term I’m teaching at The Prince’s Drawing Clubs as we’re exploring myths and legends too. The exhibition lies just across the road from an incredible archaeological site preserving temples of the Greek gods Athena, Hera and Neptune, I’ve just come back from there and tried my hand at painting its surroundings. Working with colours in watercolour was fun and foreign to me since I paint with black ink mostly. Here’s the muddied result along with a couple other quick drawings done whilst waiting for and on trains.

…and a few panels of my Uffizi tour with Jon. Negronis will feature later if I finish this little strip.

And one last drawing copied from a painting…from which I cannot recall the name. But I loved the dramatic lighting cast over the majestic figures swooping all over the canvas.

Italy-7

Foliage studies

b/w, drawing

Mark making and compositional studies in Kew Gardens, I love how these marks build up without over describing the forms amongst the dense foliage. Spring is definitely coming! I can feel it in my nose…

Sailing through troubled water

b/w, illustration

Mixing up my media more and more. Worked with acrylic paint for the first time since my college days.

Open Studio

b/w, illustration, typography

My first year on the postgraduate programme of The Prince’s Drawing School is coming to an end, and we are having an open studio showing of our work at The Tea Building in Shoreditch, and an End of Year Exhibition on Charlotte Road.

Invite design by me, went through a whole host of ideas before settling on a simple fusion of pencil and the Tea Building.

Bushstock Festival

b/w, drawing, sketchbook

Drawing at the Bushstock Festival in Shepherds Bush a couple weekends ago, I camped in the cozy St. Stephen’s church listening to some really chilled and ever so slightly sleep inducing folk and indie music, good stuff.

On the outskirts of HK

b/w, drawing, sketchbook, travel

Went away to HK last month, and spent some time exploring the quieter, more residential areas of HK. I forwent my usual brush pen and heavy graphic results, working with a graphite stick most of the time instead. It was nice to achieve a wider tonal variation, but I missed the decisiveness and the process of working with my mistakes the way I did when using ink.