Travel Sketchbook: Portugal, Cascais Sept 08

In September 08, I went to Cascais in Portugal with my marching band. What a great long weekend. The weather was beautiful beautiful and the temperature was cooler like the U.K. I decided to do a travel sketchbook after the success of my cathedral sketches. So Portugal was my first attempt at capturing the foreign surroundings.

I did a few warm-up sketches, the statue of the soldier and the medieval wall. the last picture is of a hotel on the beach of Cascais. The best drawing i've done and it will be hard to better it. I'm very proud of the hotel sketch and the building itself is beautiful, we marched on the plaza near the building. Portugal was fantastic!

Dover Pharoas

On a trip to Dover to visit an old uni friend, we went for a day out to Dover Castle, a majestic example of Norman dominance. The castle was brilliant, I managed to do a sketch of the Roman lighthouse known as a Pharoas...

The day was mix of cloud and sunlight, the clouds give the drawing more atmosphere as do the people, who were standing chatting by the flagpole. They talked for ages, very professional models... :) The sketch also reminds me of Victorian renderings, like the ones at the beginning of the Cheers credits..."Where everybody knows your name!"...

Lucie's Guardfrog...

A dear friend of mine from my foundation course, who I reconnected with after going to seperate universities.

Anyways i digress...

Lucie and I are bus buddies now and get on the same morning bus & we chat about life and it's realities. Lucie has a fear of frogs and hates the thought of them hopping towards her. She told me she thought of a Guardfrog that would protect her from danger...and other frogs...

We discussed what it would look like, and that it would be like a tribal frog with grass skirt and spear.

So Gav's blog proudly presents...

...Fresenius the frog!

Jade dragon

A colleague of mine who has become a good friend, asked me to draw her a Chinese dragon as she was born in the chinese year of the dragon. I love chinese dragons, because they aren't just a big lizard like the european dragons. They are an amalgamation of many animals, including the deer, tiger and fish. Eastern dragons tend to be good. Here is my dragon, a jade dragon to be precise...