sketching Buxton

Here's a sketch I made today. I literally had fifteen minutes, on my parking, to get a coffee and sketch. I've this thirst for drawing out and about recently.

 Dunno why. Maybe its the new pens I've got (loving fountain pens right now). Maybe it's just dawned on me that there are so many fascinating buildings where I live. Maybe I'm just looking at things differently.

Dunno. Maybe it's, well, I don't know, but I always think it's good to go with that....that...that thing I don't know how to explain.

So, I'm in this amazing labyrinth of a local book shop, that truly is the best book shop I've ever been in, drawing the organ (yes the book shop has an organ) and I had about twenty minutes before they closed.

But it's enough time, you know? It's enough time to get out the fountain pen, water brush and get it down on the page.

Maybe that's it. Maybe I just can't believe it myself; that you can create something so fast. After years of taking hours and hours over a drawing I can't believe I can fill a page, in minutes, with something I'm happy with. And I am quite happy with these.

And then there are the days that I wake up and want to do some of that line work. The stuff that takes hours and hours. I dunno.

try an' find myself again

Last night I found myself wasting too much time on Twitter, for no apparent reason - well, apart from the fact that I just cannot go to bed. I was jumping from one profile to the next, as you do. It wasn't one of those totally aimless bits of time wasting (although, late at night, I can be found doing that too), I was looking at graphic novel bok publishers and the like.

On my late night Twitter stroll, the profile Scriveners Books was thrown up, so to speak. In a strange twist of fate - well, not really, we all know there's nothing coincidental about social networking - it turns out that Scriveners is not a small publishing house but a second hand book shop in my local town.

I recognised the photo. I've driven past it a thousand times or more, but in over a decade of living here, I've never been inside. I've never even stopped or taken any interest. That's rubbish isn't it? So today, I was in Buxton and put it top of my things to do list.

And, am I glad that I did? Wow. It's amazing. I can't believe this gem has been under my nose for so long and I didn't even know. Four storeys full of books. Gorgeous, gorgeous, old books. Old armchairs dotted around the place so you can sit and immerse yourself in their pages. Or, where you can sit and sketch.

I'll be back. And, if you live in or around Buxton, and have never paid it a visit, you should go too.