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I drew this with a fountain pen filled with non-waterproof ink. Adding just water to it created the half-tone wash, which although not very controllable gives a certain life to the sketch! It was so windy and to me this comes out in the drawing.

Retreat into the Library Cafe to warm up, and do a sketch in soft pencil and soluble pencil for half-tone.

With the sun out I found a corner to tuck into, out of the howling gale, and enjoyed doing this pen and watercolour drawing, almost a cartoon, of the Theatre entrance.

And finally on the way home at Malvern Link I stopped to draw a view that I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. It’s only a quick watercolour impression, simplifying as much as possible what seems like a very complicated scene. The atmostphere I was after? Blustery.

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If you look carefully you’ll spot an eagle carved into the wall at the bottom of the drawing. I couldn’t help doing another impression of just the eagle, it has such attitude proudly standing out from the corner!

On this occasion I didn’t use my usual fine liner pens, but just a thick 2B pencil on quite heavy watercolour paper, to try to stop myself getting too bogged down in details.

When it started to rain in the afternoon we all retreated in the Tesco Cafe and compared sketchbooks. It’s always inspiring and fun.

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This was drawn whilst out with the Birmingham Urban Sketchers group, at the Chinese New Year celebrations in February 2019. It was cold and people were still setting up as it was early. If you look hard you can just see another sketchers sitting behind the tub with greenery on top!

Moving on I squeezed behind the crowds watching musical performances on the sound stage and enjoying the sight of three small children on their Dad’s shoulders decided to have a go at the drawing, keeping the composition a vertical slice to see what happened. I don’t know how it’s going to look until it’s done but I liked doing this one!

We all met up later on at The Victoria on Station Street, a very dark building within a shadowy backstreet. It was bitingly cold but this was an irresistible view and three others were having a go at the same time which made it a much more enjoyable experience. Especially when we all compare sketchbooks over a beer at the end of the day.

And on the way home I can’t resist one last drawing. Platform 12b which takes me back to Malvern Link at the end of a fun day with a great bunch of other hardy sketchers!

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