Rusty breakwater in Deal, Kent

These rusty breakwaters in Deal are a big favourite with local artists, and I find their shape very appealing.
I decided to try and convey their substance in a drawing. I found quite difficult to distinguish between the rusty metal and the wooden parts of the posts. Maybe it would be better to use colour to help create a better impression of the materials.
Anyway, to make it clear what I was trying to achieve, I've added a photograph, which was taken later than the first part of the drawing, and so the light has changed.

Here's the drawing:

And here's the photograph:

Drawing with textures

I collected a small log with some broken bark, a pine cone, three poppy heads, and a shiny leaf.

I have to admit that I'm still struggling to convey different textures in a drawing. For instance the leaf was quite shiny, but I don't think this really comes over in the finished drawing.

I tried using a mixture of media, using a soft graphite pencil to create some of the texture of the bark. But I kept reverting to my sharp 2B pencil to get more definition around the poppy stems, which were very light-coloured and therefore stood out from the darker bark in the background.

Anyway, here goes...

Experimenting with texture

This has been, without doubt, the most difficult and frustrating exercise so far.

I've tried drawing folded fabric, bits of wood, a silk tie, some pottery, some wood bark and a few other bits and pieces. I even tried drawing the texture of a towel, and some suede material.

I also tried some frottage, using the seat of a cane chair.

I tried using pencil and charcoal, using the rubber to create light patches. However, as the pathetic picture below shows, most of the pics turned out really badly, and are just meaningless splodges.

I think I'm going to go back to the Bridgeman library to look at the way the masters do it. I might also try using some other materials, such as pastels or (when I buy one) a dip pen.

Anyway here's the mess....

Visit to Leighton House Museum

Just paid a visit to the former home of Frederic Leighton, a Victorian artist who built this house in Kensington and decorated it like an oriental building, using beautiful C17 Arabian tiles.

The house is as he left it and his study is packed with many of his drawings which I found really inspiring (and somewhat daunting), many of them on grey paper so that he could use white chalk to bring out highlights. I was struck by all of them, but really impressed by a simple study of some folded silk material. The execution of this drawing was fabulous, and is really one to try and emulate (!)

On show were also had a number of pre-Raphaelite paintings, including this huge one by Waterhouse called Mariamne, depicting King Herod condemning his wife to death: