Drawn with the willow charcoal and finished with a fixative

Drawn with the willow charcoal and finished with a fixative

The grandson, Kai.
Taken at the rear of the Malmaison Hotel, Liverpool with a Nikon 55-200mm VR lens.
I like this lens, it gives a nice blur to the background, providing you leave a suitable distance between it and your subject.

This was taken at 92mm ISO 100 f4.5 1/60s.

This was taken from Princes Parade, Liverpool, facing north.

It was taken with the Nikon 18-55 vr lens
with the VR on.

This was taken with the nikon 50mm 1.8 a cracking lens, very sharp, and really brings out the detail.

It`s taken at Marine Lake, Cambridge Road end in Waterloo, Liverpool.

Directly ahead is the beach, on the River Mersey, on it`s way out to the Irish Sea.

This is the Nikon F80 35mm SLR analogue camera. A truely excellent camera this. The two lenses here, are the Nikon 28-80mm kit lens, and the the other is the 70-300mm 5.6D zoom. I got some great photies with these lenses, but now that I have a Nikon digital..
and these don`t function fully on it..I don`t use either much at all.

To mount these on my current camera, I have no auto-focus, no light meter, and especially important for the 70-300mm....no vibration reduction. It` still a cracking lens with a tripod and self timer...so it does get some use...but not so much as it would.

The lady was drawn with the Letraset ProMarker, for the bold strokes, with minimal work with a 8b Faber Castell.
The double tip on the ProMarker is very handy for just turning it around, and using the bullet edge for more fine control

The next time your in Liverpool, looking for a taxi, you can`t do better than Seaforth Radio Cars.

You get a call back as the car arrives...so no hanging around in door ways, or outside bars, so some-one else does`nt pinch your cab.

All cars are regularly, randomly, checked by council officials, so they are all well maintained. And the fares are probably the keenest in the area.

There`s also lady drivers too.

How long do you normally wait for your taxi?
That depends on how busy the system is of course, but typically, no more than 15 minutes or so.

Drawn with willow charcoal . This is one of my favourite mediums for drawing. I`d definitely recommend trying it, if it is`nt something you usually use.

This was drawn with a Letraset ProMarker willow charcoal, and soft pastels I also used a  a fixative to prevent smudging once I`d finished the drawing.

The fixative is a must when using charcoal, pastels, or any medium that smudges easily. 

Another willow charcoal drawing, sketched in about 10 minutes.

I`ve used a soft pastel again in the back ground.

Changing the colour of this back ground can have completely different effects.....try a bit of experimenting.

Drawn with the charcoal willow stick with a soft pastel in the background to offset it slightly.

Drawn in about 10 minutes, and sprayed with a fixative to prevent smudging.

This was drawn with a 8b Faber Castell pencil, and the eyes were inked in with a Copic marker. I usually have two pencils, one with a sharpened tip, the other shaped with a craft knife  so that about half an inch of lead is usable to shade in with.

This enables me to work fluently.

I also use Blue Tac to lift off lead here and there as highlights. You can shape the Blue Tac to a fine point, or more broader, to suit your needs, and your not using it as a traditional eraser your lifting the lead, or charcoal, etc off the page, instead off rubbing it out.

This image of the Liver Buildings, in Liverpool, was taken from Princes Parade, looking south.

It was taken with the Sigma 50mm 1.4 HSM AFS.

Taken on a nice, cool evening, with a tripod
ISO 100- f4 -0.80s- @50mm

This is The Abert Dock in Liverpool.
Viewed facing north from Mariners Wharf.

It was shot with a Sigma 50mm 1.4 AFS.

20.00S F8 ISO 100 @ 50mm
with a tripod.

The Sigma 50mm 1.4 AFS is an excellent lens.
It`s also very good for portraiture work, and for night shots, such as this.

This was taken at the Saracens Head in Haskayne, near Ormskirk.

I used a Tamron 17-50mm 2.8 VC @17mm 1/200s ISO 100 f8.

This is a cracking lens, very sharp, and fast to autofocus, it also performs very well in low light, and the VC (Vibration Compensation) allows you to take shots hand-held when you would normally need a tripod.

Willow charcoal, with an 8B Faber castell pencil.
This drawing took about 10 minutes to complete, and the idea of the expression was due to an arguement I seen two people having in the street;-)

Lady with ear rings

This was drawn with a 8b Faber Castell. These are my favorite pencils, they`re very smooth, and move easily, and evenly across the page.

Another good thing about Faber Castell pencils, is that they don`t scratch the paper surface at all.

I use a electric pencil sharpener to keep the tip just as I want it.

This took about fifteen minutes to complete.