Wednesday, January 23, 2008

January 2008 SketchCrawl!

Last weekend was the 17th WorldWide SketchCrawl. The Nice chapter was formed by myself, Carlos & Sebastian from the art dept. on 'A Monster In Paris'. Carlos & I spent the day in picturesque village perché St.Paul de Vence while Seb headed out to medieval fortress town Entrevaux.


I kicked off with a study of the narrow streets that give St Paul such character.

The guitarist in the photo above showed up as I was drawing & I couldn't resist switching to another page to quickly capture him. Whenever kids came by with their parents he would put on a red clown nose & dazzle them with his kazoo skills!

Rodin's 'Thinker' contemplates the great view from the town walls, while Carlos draws on.

Here is Carlos sitting dangerously close to a fast game of pétanques.

Some gestures & poses of the old boys playing pétanques.


A local lady stopped as she saw me painting the water-colour above & asked me if I'd make one of the facade of her shop. She led me by the arm around the corner to show me her antiques shop & I was happy to accept the commission. I made a quick pencil rough for her approval then over the next couple nights worked up the painting below from photographs.

Our first SketchCrawl was a great day out in surroundings that beg to be drawn. All the drawings from the group can be viewed on the SketchCrawl forum.


8 comments:

Unknown said...

Superbes aquarelles ma poule! tres tres chouette.
Bises!
PS: we are under the bloody rain here...it's been raining for a week!

Elliot Cowan said...

Was Crawlmaster Alina Chau there?

max said...

Phenomenal stuff. I like your splatter effect(do you carry magic tape?).
I find a striking similarity between the thinker and the old boys playing, similar compositions with your friend Carlos standing as the Thinker for the enjoyment of the players of petanques.
The old boys playing is my favourite I think, very strong and simple.

Jeroen said...

your view of the street is beautiful. Is the speckle effect in the foreground done in photoshop? works really well.

Matt Jones said...

Stef-Merci mon pote, we've had rain too recently-our orange skin will soon fade if this continues.

Elliot- I was hoping to see Alina but alas she was a no show.

Max-Thnx Max, didn't spot the Thinker similarity-top marks & a cigar for you next time we meet.

Jeroen-Thanks, the splatter effect is a good old toothbrush & Indian Ink or Chinese Ink as the French call it.

monkeyfeather said...

Great sketches. I went on the San Francisco crawl, but your day looks far more successful than mine.

limbolo said...

My compiments to the handiest wrist on the cote d'azure.
Elliot may wish to know that Alina signed in at the bullfight exhibition at Nimes last summer. She thought it was coool.

Adam Rogers said...

So nice. Particularly the "old boys".
What you have there with so few lines - beautiful.