Back 2 back

At life drawing last week the models sat back to back, like 'bookends' the organiser called it.

A good challenge. Always pulls you up when you have two bodies in relation to each other, because of the relative positions, what looks good for one body you can see is wrong for the other. It is a very good way of keeping your eye relative.

Not fixed yet.

Scanner still in intensive care, but had this one ferreted away.

I called it Legs Over.

Drawn in Soho Square, a few summers ago.

Paralympic weekend pt 3

Every current train journey will include a smattering of flag carrying, Team GB wearing, paralympic going folk. Whose quota increases the closer you get to transport hubs that link to any venue.

Here are is a middle aged couple from the weekend. Flags rolled and ready in anticipation.

I like the idea of their calm, very English reserve being replaced with flag waving and cheering, then being rolled up and put back for the journey home.

Don't know what they went to see but they got off before the connection to the Olympic park, so I am guessing probably The O2 or the EXcel.

Are there Paralympics at the O2 ?

Couple

Is she not talking to him today ?

Hey, wake up. We're there.

This couple slept so soundly on the plane they were in danger of doing the return trip too.

( Note to self - stop sketching people in positions that look like they might, just might, be having oral sex. )

Santa Clara

Santa Clara on a sunday was a party town. ( mind you, I think EVERYWHERE EVERYDAY was a party town, from what I saw. )

Two sketches of a couple chilling in the main square.

I liked how they were sitting.

Not entirely sure what his hand was up to, but I'm sure it was perfectly innocent. 

More they lied.

Two more sketches of the couple from yesterday.

I think this is a better one of the bloke, doesn't make him look quite so old.

And I love how the fingers in the guide book she was reading worked out here.

It was the Lonely Planet guide to Cuba. EVERYONE seemed to have a copy. 

No wonder our paths crossed twice in one day.

They lied !

Went up a mountain one day. On the way up we met a couple coming down, who told us we were halfway there. So we gamely pressed on. And it turned out we were only a third of the way at best. But I guess it was a boost to our hiking moral, so whatever...

Then, later, as we sat in a (well-deserved) Mojito soaked daze on the veranda of the Hotel Casa Grande, the same couple arrived and sat right in front of us.

Such blatant willingness to participate in the narrative of the day couldn't be ignored. So here they are.

I just allowed myself an English nod of the head to them in acknowledgement of our mutual path crossing, and resisted the urge to stagger over and make them feel morally accountable for my throbbing, ravaged thighs.

I am not joking. By then end of the trip we could hardly walk, and HAD to spend an entire afternoon laying on sunbeds. 

Honest.

Chat

This couple sat on opposite sides of the train, and leant across to chat to each other the whole journey.

  

But the system won't let me post them side by side, as they were. Boooo.

Back to the sketches

Have been allowing this blog to wander a bit, spent a year keeping it on the straight sketching, think the last few side jaunts I have posted are allowable. But, back to task, back to the backbone of this...

Sketched these two at two different times, and in very different styles. But like that they seem to have a connection, on the page like this. As though there is more distance between them than just spatial.

I know, no colour. Colour is defeating me somewhat.

So... pt 2

Well that didn't go as planned. I am not brave enough to be as loose. The end result is...

...weak and muddy.

I had a warmer colour for the outline, but it disappeared, so went for a stronger dark purple, but, whilst it kinda works for him, it is way too heavy for her.  She looks almost armoured !

Although who is to say this is the end result !

360 - nearly there.

Snowy here ( and everywhere ) at the moment. So a sketch from the summer, and a day people watching in the park.

I don't know what she was saying, but loved her knees.

Is that so wrong ?

Paris will always have us.

Silly little sketch from ages ago, but one that brings so much back to me instantly. And as I am within hearing distance of spoken French it is very suitable.

We were staying in a tiny hotel behind Gallerie Lafayette, and in the morning the staff used to gather to go in for work.

And one morning I sketched these two.

Love his nonchalant slouch.

Traveling 2gether ?

These two sat quietly side by side as the DLR rattled through the tunnel on one of the Greenwich runs from back when. Not even sure if they knew each other, but stuck together now.  Like the line weight, finer than usual. Was using a ball point pen.

Bench hug

Not sure if that is technically a hug or a possessive grip he has on her there.

Feeling your behind

Blimey I'm getting behind this month. Will need to do a massive catch up when this job is over.

Just been swamped by all the odd little things you end up having to organise, ( getting rear seat belts fitted into a 1986 Allegro, getting a chimney swept, ( £40 - bargain ) working out how to change the colour of the walls in a working maternity unit without damaging the wall surface in any way whatsoever. ) And running dangerously low on spare people sketches, now I'm knee deep in doing this. Will aim to get some fresh subjects this sunday, will be out and about, so will make it my mission.

As for this couple, look at them, all trussed up in their thick winter coats that seem so long ago now we are enjoying the big fresh days of April. It has been beautiful this past week. All memories of that long cold winter banished to the deepest recesses.

Where they should be.

69 - a quick one.

Another quick sketch from the summer park day.

Any sapphic, numerical undertones are all resolutely in my head.

61 & 62 - Couple

Sat opposite this German couple yesterday, Sketched him first, as he was facing away from me, attentive to her. She had a lot to say to him, to include him in ( that's how I know they were German ). After a while she turned to look out the window, companionably together, so I drew her profile as well. Only had my small sketch book, so had to draw them on separate pages.

Wanted to post them side by side here, as they were. An Arundel tomb, for the internet. But when I post it refigures them one above the other, so no poetry then.

How will all of this decay ? Does the Internet have an eternity in it ?

I hope they have a good, long relationship. I hope it does survive.

42

Sometimes these scans insist on loading themselves upside down. I have resisted the urge, every time, to let it be, and go all Baselitz on you, and instead go back and resave them so they load properly. Never have that problem with pen and paper.

This couple were on the tube, but not together, they just ended up that way in my book. I think she was talking to her female friend who sat opposite her. Tourists. Very quick sketches these, not really belonging to the one line club, but look like they could.

number 39

Sat next to this couple at St. Pancras station, waiting for the train ( obviously ) Everyone was well wrapped against the cold still, and she nuzzled into him for comfort.

The way his hand came round over her shoulder was too good to resist, so out came the sketch book. I was amazed to get away with it, sitting so close to them and they not noticing, mind you, they obviously have better things to occupy their minds at that moment in time.

His arm isn't quite at the right angle though. A little off.