More Blackpool architecture that overlooks the seafront.
I enjoy working quickly especially as this paper absorbs ink, especially if you hold the pen still even for a fraction of a second. It can be a fun challenge working fast enough whilst still retaining the readability of the sketch.
This drawing is of The Stone Grill, which overlooks the sea at the north end of Blackpool, away from the bright lights of Blackpool itself and much closer to the Norbreck Castle, which is unique in being nothing like a castle.
I love how blocks of buildings can be so different in Blackpool, all built at different times to different specifications, and some going through a variety of transformations over the years. They don’t fit but that’s what adds to the charm for me. If everything was the same it would just be a massive boring block of Meh.
A3 watercolour drawing with Posca marker and Lamy Safari on white card
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Origami Water Bomb
Or how I caused trouble in high school
When I was in high school or at least my last two years of high school, I was fed up, didn’t feel like I was making any progress, so I started entertaining myself in classes by making origami models. The thing is the only one I had actually memorised from my older brothers book was for a “water bomb”.
They wouldn’t that effective for holding water, as generally filling them from a tap, water would spill all over them as the hole was so small. they would just end up soggy.
So what I did instead was make them to all different sizes and colours, and with any paper I could get my hands on, even tiny little ones smaller than a centimetre cube that I built with the assistance of a pair of compasses. I would then hide them with my co-conspirators in classrooms to be discovered when we weren’t there.
No one ever questioned me about it, and having worked in education I can only imagine that they weren’t bothered as at the end of the day a lot of stuff just gets swept into the bin.
This water bomb is drawn on A4 Cartridge Paper and drawn in pencil crayon.
Today is a lazy Sunday, I’m sitting with my family we have Netflix on in the background, and I am thinking about the last eighteen months since I started working on being a painter as well as a potter. It has been a journey of exploration, of finding myself. Though I have been drawing every day for the last six years, it wasn’t until I started this as a business that I really considered what it was I actually liked to draw, I just drew.
somedays I drew what was on my desk, from life fruit, jars, tins, packets just everything and anything. one day I realised I wanted to draw landscapes and buildings, so I started to work from my own collection of photographs.
A view I had never seen before in Fleetwood.
As part of Tram Sunday (Fleetwood festival of transport 2022), I went out with my camera in hand and started taking pictures of the festival but also bits of buildings and found an alleyway that I have never noticed before bear the market, and as plenty of people were walking around the town with cameras I didn’t feel weird as I had done before and I really love the alleyway as an image. There is so much going on from rendered walls some with iron oxide drips, the weeds growing, the cobblestone wall which morphs into a brick wall, and the random little lamppost ties it all together in a nice neat vertical element.
When I wanted to explore further afield I didn’t have the time to really travel, so I started using google street view to travel. I still use it at times but I don’t use it completely in my drawings, I use it as a jumping point, imagining the buildings from a different angle, a different perspective.
I want to keep exploring, keep developing my skills, keep painting and move further afield than I currently can. I also would really like to experiment with woodblock printing, recently as part of my super secret project I did some printing off of some driftwood I have collected over the years and I really want to play about with that some more.
This block still feels so familiar to me despite being gone for a number of years, and I still consider Beatties being behind there and that has long since gone and I think was even a Toymaster at some point. My internal map of Blackpool is so weird and is mix of present and the 90s and a lot from the 90s just isn’t there any more like Electronics Boutique inside the Houndshill.
I can’t personally recommend the fish and chips here as I have never eaten from this shop myself. The combination of buildings along the Blackpool Seafront are fascinating, so I wanted to just draw the buildings and not worry about painting so I grabbed a sheet of kraft card and just drew it all.
The drawing is A3 on kraft card done initially with pencil for the basic forms and then working up the drawings in Posca Marker, for something a little bit different.
