I’ve been doing some more of my ‘proper’ drawing recently. Building up a collection. Some of these as finished pieces are viewable on my alter ego site: the unknown artist

The same ones are available as prints from here

On a recent posting, one of my friends said that they deserved some explanation. So here goes. The images are all from my own photographs of my travels and holidays. Many come from walking holidays where I can usually found bringing up the rear of any walk while looking for images. Some are a little more local to me here in the UK.

The idea, if there is such a thing with these, is to add to the image in some way. Or to highlight what might not be apparent in the photograph, otherwise, it might be just better to just post the photo and have done with it. It’s all quite self-indulgent as I do it for myself, but it’s great when there’s a positive reaction, or even a negative one at that!

I made my living for many years drawing cartoons and I would not ever say that I can do better drawings than that, as I have great respect for cartoonists and what might be called ‘commercial” artists. I’ve been one!

When I started, I worked for one of the largest advertising agencies in London, briefly, where they had three full-time illustrators on the payroll. Those chaps, they were all men then, could draw in almost any style. I was a very junior art director and if we needed a drawing we’d venture to the illustrator’s studio to ask when they could do a particular piece of artwork. As I recall a Van Goch usually took a day or so. An old master would require a little longer deadline, perhaps a week or two, depending on work load and complexity. For a Picasso, you were told to come back in 40 minutes. I exaggerate, but only slightly.

What I’m saying here was that those chaps were masters of drawing in almost any genre. Much respect.

Anyhow, about this drawing. The image is a poppy field in France, in the South West rather than the North. Poppies peeking through a field of wheat. It’s not a common sight around here any more, thanks to weedkillers, but there are odd areas where we do still get them. The drawing here is the original pen and ink version that I did from the photo, with a plan to add colour later, digitally. So, in a way, this is the absolute original and the final one might be called a collaboration with the programmers who designed photoshop.

I’m trying with all these drawings to get energy into the drawing and a feeling for the atmosphere of the place. If I can get it just with the line drawing, then we’re off to a fine start. The colour can either kill or cure it completely.

The colour version won’t be completed for some time, so for the next couple of weeks I’ll just be posting the line drawings with a small explanation, and like here, the original photograph. Thanks for stopping by.