Frog island - river and canal in charcoal

photograph of sketchbook:




I spent the afternoon sketching along the canal in an area called Frog Island with a friend.

The other side of the weir is the canal and boats passed occasionally, this side is the River Soar and to the left is one end of Frog Island. With all the industry I somehow doubt that there are any frogs now - though there were 2 swans nests just below and moorhens scuttling about on the water and amorous pigeons strutting and cooing near my feet, so still plenty of wildlife.

It's an old industrial area of Victorian factories and in the distance are cranes, they are extending one of the shopping malls in the town centre.

This sketch has christened my nice big A3 landscape book ~:>) - it's about 3 feet across a double page spread so is nice to use with charcoal.

I hadn't sketched out in charcoal for a long time and I really enjoyed it, I'll definitely be doing more. I really do like charcoal - it's such a painterly medium. In this I used willow charcoal and a charcoal pencil to emphasise the darkest darks. It took about just over 2 hours. I don't normally 'do' architecture so it was a challenge! My little battery operated eraser was very useful for drawing back into the darks

scans of details



Comments

Making A Mark said…
I really like that tree!

I don't think of you as a buildings person - I think you excel at natural things - which i guess is why I'm liking that tree so much!
4:42 pm
vivien said…
I'm not a buildings person! but I wanted to look at all the aspects of the waterways :)

I did enjoy working in charcoal and drawing back with that little battery eraser - it was a fantastically good buy :>)
6:46 am
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