Ilfracombe Harbour

 Ilfracombe is finished .. YAY!!

(Apart from a few waves around Verity, that Ive only just noticed, I'll draw them in before its goes to be printed.)

Anyway this drawing has taken me over a year, from the very first set of photographs to the drawing you see on screen.

I started drawing in December, using a 0.1 fine line pen, by the end of February when I had draw half the original pen drawing before I discovered it wouldn't fit on the page, so the original drawing ended up as a set of sketches.

Since April I have been working on it in photoshop, I've done an awful lot of cut and pasting, been back several times to take more photo's, studied google street view trying to fill in the gaps. The photo's below show my progress over the last 4 months.

 

         

The image will be a Giclee print, printed using pigment inks onto archival fine art paper.

The print is now ready for ordering, UK orders will be delivery straight from the printer, so will be unsigned. 

I am able to sign and deliver copies locally anywhere within 20 miles of Lynton, which includes Ilfracombe, Barnstaple, Braunton, South Molton etc etc If you live a little further please contact me as I will need to charge a small amount towards fuel costs.

The Image can be printed in three sizes and costs (UK shipping) included as follows..

A1+ (limited edition 500) £300

A2+ £130

A3+ £85

I am able to send internationally however shipping will be extra.

I accept PayPal or bank transfer payments.
If you have any questions or would like a copy of the print please leave a message in the comments box on the left hand side of this post.

Photo's on my Phone 26th June to 2nd July 2024

Last Tuesday my lovely friends held a surprise late birthday party.
Lots of birthday cake and much love & appreciation for the girls or maybe I should call them ladies💖

Then on Wednesday it was sports day, I didn't take many photos as I know some parents aren't happy about their children's photo's being shared, so I have been very careful and tried to cut all the people out. 

The cheer leading team.

From left to right - Step mum, Nanny, Queenie (grandma) and last but most importantly Mummy.

The first photo is of the start of one of Bert's running races and the last 2 of Maggie's sack race. 

There was much debate between the cheer leaders as whether Maggie had come 3rd or 4th. Mummy thought it was 5th, but I don't believe she was looking in the right direction.

It was very hot!

The rest of the week has consisted of drawing and dog walking, plus a little bit of playing Zelda when I can fit a few minutes in.

I've almost finished Woolcombe

And Ilfracombe

I finally managed to pop over and take the missing photo's, not only have I missed a building out completely, but the road curves round to the left. I've got a lot of cut and pasting to do to get the road in the right place. I suspect I might still need to take more photo's.

Ilfracombe map - WIP

Ever since I finished my 2 drawings of Lynton and Lynmouth last spring I have been talking about drawing Ilfracombe in the same style.

Ilfracombe is one of our closest towns, 13 miles along the coast, it has a very pretty harbour, some beautiful Victorian/Edwardian buildings, including the stunning Earlsdale B&B that I had the please of drawing a couple of years ago.  https://www.theearlsdale.co.uk/

Ilfracombe is also the home of "Verity" Damien Hirst's giant statue, she stands on the harbour wall looking out to sea. All of which made Ilfracombe the obvious choice for my next map drawing.

I started taking photo's last year in June on a glorious sunny day, the excuse was a birthday lunch at S & P Fish Shop on the harbour, they do the most amazing sea food platters, no frills and straight off the fishing boats .... heaven.

I had lots of other drawings to work on so I didn't started working on the drawing till Christmas. I didn't have enough reference photos so I posed over and took some more. The weather was gloomy, I haven't edited them so you can see what I am working with.

I have deleted most of the early drawings to save space on my computer, but I posted the first drawings on Instagram on 7th January, which means I have been working on the drawing for over 4 months.

The original drawing is drawn with a 0.05 fine line pen. I don't know Ilfracombe as intimately as I do Lynton & Lynmouth so I struggled with position and scale, the original drawing soon became a set of sketches that I had to piece together like a jigsaw.

 I still haven't finished all of the original sketches, but I couldn't wait to start putting them together in photoshop. The below is one of the later working images dated 23rd of April. I add layers and draw over the top of the working drawing.

You can find all the progress photo's on my instagram feed  https://www.instagram.com/amandaperkinsdrawings/

Below is today's save, as you can see I still have a long way to go, I still have to photograph the bottom left of the image, sketch it and add it to the bottom layer. There is no eta, it will be finished when its finished, fingers crossed its before Christmas 😄

On being wrong June 2021

 I've always had my own level of perfection, if a colour was wrong in a blanket I would frog the whole thing rather than leave it imperfect, sometimes I'd frog 2 or 3 times until it was right. 
I don't think anyone else would of noticed that it was wrong, but I couldn't live with the mistake shouting at me every time I looked at it.

I've noticed the same is happening in my drawings. My "Cindy's Deck" panorama of Lynton is wrong, I don't like the tree's on Hollerday Hill, Countisbury isn't right and I'd like to redo it in black and white.

But....... maybe I'm wrong, maybe I should leave it as it is and move on to a new view of Lynton.

I've always believed you should never go backwards, even though that's exactly what I've done in the last few months. I've gone back 20+ years and started drawing and knitting again. Although the knitting is just as bad as its always been, 20 years life experience has changed the style, technique and level of professionalism of my art work. So its not really going back its moving forward with something that's been on hold for a long time.

The reason for this blog post is that I am working on my next panorama this time of Lynmouth, I've finished the first drawing and am over halfway to finishing the second. 

This morning I was really excited to lay them together to see the full effect, even though Im really happy with both drawing Im not happy with the way they fit together. 

I have several options, 

1 - Pretend they are 2 separate drawings

2 -  Redraw one of them completely 

3 - Just ignore the fact that the trees aren't big enough over the Bath, the slipway has a bump in it and the water in the harbour is flowing the wrong way

Normally I would scrap one and start again, but maybe I should leave them as they are and let the viewer either not notice the mistakes or think that they are intentional. 

When they are framed they will have a bigger gap between them and the mistakes might not be noticeable at all.

I think I need to leave them as they are and keep my fingers crossed that the 3rd drawing fits a lot better with the 1st.

Sketches of Lynmouth June 2021

I've been working on lots of sketches of Lynmouth in preparation of tackling another panorama.
I'm completely obsessed at the moment, all I want to do it draw.

I was awake at 3 am for no particular reason, so I'm giving myself the day off drawing complicated charts for my next crochet book, they'd only go wrong and I'd have to redo them and allowing myself to draw more pictures of Lynmouth instead.

The Tors & Rock House

Countisbury again!

The Rhenish

The Rising Sun

Rock House

The Bath

Lynton From Cindy's Deck May 2021

 

Something big is finished. Im really happy with most of it, but there a few things I have developed further, mainly my technique and symbolisim, I'd also like to do it in black and white.. The trees on Hollerday Hill are wrong and so is Countisbury.

I won't turn this into a print as I want to redo it at a later date, but I will sell the originals, message me if you are interested. They are Coloured pencil and acrylic pen on A3 paper.

Lynton, Something big April 2021

 For a long time I've liked the idea of making an image of the whole of Lynton. Its a tiny little toy town nestling in a little valley, behind a big hill, sheltering it from the Atlantic north winds. And its been my home for the past 9 years, I'm very proud of where I live, so when we went to see a friend who lives on the opposite side of the valley I took the opportunity to photograph the whole town.

When I say its a tiny town, it really is tiny town, smaller than a lot of villages, only just over 1000 permanent residents.

I started by joining all the photos together on photoshop, then divided it into 4 to make it easier to work on. So far I have finished 3 of them and just about to start work on the 4th.

They are not perfect and but I've learnt a lot and want to draw Lynton again from several different view points.