Book of the Week- The Return!

The first book of the week for the new school year is Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud by Andrew Lane. Not to be confused with the comedic film, this is actually a very good book in a similar style to a lot of 'books for boys' at the moment- action packed plotlines like Alex Rider and Young James Bond.

You know you're fighting a losing battle, when one pupil asks you why Sherlock Holmes was book of the week every week, when you only put the poster up yesterday!

Opening Post

Today is the first post of my sketchblog. It'll be a bit rough around the edges mostly because the idea behind the blog is to do a 'drawing a day' based on being a graduate trainee librarian in Oxford.

I warn you now that reportage illustration was not my forte at university- 4 years full time art could not cure me of my dislike of drawing buildings, however I really want to draw the architecture here so you may have to bear with me whilst I work through my rustiness.

Here's the first post of drawings done last week, I'd avert your eyes if you don't want to see appalling wonky lines attempting to represent building structure!

This is the house we can see from the Social Science Library workroom- it's actually a lot nicer than this but this was pretty much done in my 20 min break as well as drinking coffee and eating cake so I can be forgiven. I'll probably have go at this later on in the year- see if my skills have improved any!

I quite like this one- it's Sarah Thomas, Bodley's Librarian, at the second all staff meeting. I did think this was going to be a good opportunity to draw, but then couldn't get past the 'we had no second plan' part of the presentation (in relation to the depository).

A window in the Divinity School- drawn just before the drinks reception.

The balcony area at the Social Science Building canteen- this one has a note that says 15 minutes which shows I can draw a little better under pressure if I'm not distracted by coffee.