‘Sketching the Musicians at Phonic FM’

In the Studio

The studio is not an ideal sketching environment. The lighting isn’t very​ good, it’s rather ‘flat’ and dingy. It’s also pretty cramped, especially with more than one musician in.
However, it is fantastic to watch and listen to the musicians giving an intimate​ acoustic performance! And I just do the best I can.

Materials Used

Most of these sketches were drawn or painted in a Daler Rowney, Red & Yellow cartridge pad. Often sketched out quickly first with a 6B pencil, before adding watercolour or pen. I use my trusty Winsor & Newton, watercolour field paint box, with two round brushes, sable no.1 & no.6. The pen used is a fineliner and I’ve also used a black watercolour pencil.
The digital sketch below is using ‘ArtRage’ on an iPad. I was trying it out to see what I thought of it and how it works. I was working on several layers here, before flattening it. Same, but different. However, being an old git, I still prefer drawing traditionally.

Tobias Ben Jacob

This week’s special studio guest was Tobias Ben Jacob, who was playing songs from his fantastic new album ‘A Polyphonic Life’. Check it out here on Bandcamp: ‘Tobias Ben Jacob – Bandcamp‘ Some great original songwriting and sound. Very much recommended!

John Peel

A slightly different sketch today. Mark is doing a special ‘John Peel Festive Fifty’ show. Playing old songs from the late, great DJ’s festive show and ‘The Last Transmission’s’ favourite songs from the last year. So I brought along a couple of photo’s of John to put together and do ‘my’ own sketch from them.
I started with a quick pencil outline before working in pen ~ A5

Stuart Wills

‘Stuart Wills’ was in the studio – one half of Vending Machine Heart. He played one of their old songs and a great new song too ~ with beautiful lyrics and rich acoustic guitar.
This sketch was roughly A4, using pen & watercolour wash.

Steve

Kiera Osment

Mark

A little A6 pen sketch of Mark at the microphone.

Far from the Delta

Tonight we had the pleasure of listening to J, from ‘Far from the Delta’. ‘Far from the Delta’ are a three-piece blues band with hard rock influences. However, tonight being on his tod, J is playing acoustic on a resonator guitar – putting in some great slide work too. Cool stuff!

Pen Sketch ~ A4

The Lyers

Sitting here enjoying a great live set by North Devon band ‘The Lyers‘. Beautiful singing and guitar playing from the three of them. Well worth checking out if they are around your way!

Watercolour Pencil + Computer added tint ~ A4

Harry’s Dad

A charcoal sketch of Paul one of the ‘3Dads’. He’s in to talk about his song ‘Suicide’, the story behind the lyrics and trying to raise money to help young people with mental health problems. He’s a 40 something man on a mission!
A4

Chiyoda Ku

Friday night found me once more sat quietly in the corner of the Phonic FM radio studio with my sketchbook. Tonight they were interviewing the instrumental, two-piece, math-rock band ‘Chiyoda Ku‘ who have just released their debut EP ‘Bread and Circuses’.

A4 Sketch using a pen, brush & ink. I added some texture by​ splattering ink in some areas and then finally added the band’s EP cover in the background using Photoshop. Tweaking the levels, again to add more texture.

Mark again

Finally