Sketch Back Sunday 3

Sketch back Sunday is now in its 3rd week and is already very popular. I am getting lots of likes on facebook and people think its a great idea. Although some say I should have a proper retrospective show in a gallery. But 7 years of my art was in Australia and I sold all my art there. 

In the picture above is a drawing I done at Cleveland college while studying illustration under Dudley Edwards. We went to Amsterdam and wont allowed to draw or photograph while there just to walk on the wild side and then come back and draw from memory to different themes. At that time there were a lot of drug addicts begging for 25 guilders to get a hit. They were mostly foreigners to Holland trapped in a cycle of drugs and could not get home. Drawing from memory puts everything out of perspective and gives it at more vibrant scene. This is biro and crayon on paper. I was a difficult pupil at college and my style changed every picture. I wasn't very good at being moulded to someone else's style.

Here is a sketch done round at my house of Ben Roberts who was playing the guitar. I always have had musicians in my life but never had the ability to hear. but music sets a tone and vibration. I can hear now thanks to lots of operations on my ears and can now hear music. This was in Bradford where I was doing an Hons degree in Illustration but got distracted by life as I had been at college now for nearly 8 years. I had a job managing a vege restaurant called the Java. I met up with Ben at a NYE party in manchester where I met most of the Bradford gang after 20 years. It was great to see they were all doing very well.

Matt Robinson and Ben Roberts playing guitar in Harlow Bradford. Matt worked at the Java and Ben was part of the boys gang that lived next door to me and then round the corner from me. Matt now lives in New Zealand and does electronic music and Ben lives in Prague works in the internet.

This is a picture of Bradford that won a trade and industry christmas card competition which I was a bit surprised at winning prizes as I always felt a failure. I liked colour so this ink style suited my work. I soon got obsessed with sculpture and lost my way with drawing for a while. Those were the days when there was still brick chimneys everywhere and every house had an outside toilet in the yard of the back to back houses.