I am totally in love with history, and ever since I was really young, I felt as if I could feel the historic energy in a place, as if the walls buzz a little bit as you walk through it. And yes, I'm the weirdo who has to touch the old stones on a castle ruin or the doorknobs of a stately home. I've also always liked to draw, and so now, I've combined the two passions of mine together.
I started sketching accurate, tightly-detailed pencil drawings, and then, influenced by the work of artists such as UK Urban Sketcher Ian Fennelly, I started to experiment more with adding emotional colour, a liveliness and some distortions to my sketches. I use bright colours to try and capture the energy of a place and add splashes of paint to create a sketch that seems to shimmer in front of your eyes. Historic places and buildings are still alive with the vibrations from events that happened centuries ago, and this is what I aim to capture in all my sketches.
One of my current projects is a heritage-themed sketchbook that will be sent off this winter to live forever in the Brooklyn Sketchbook Library in New York. The theme I have chosen is Cityscape Escape, and it will be a travel journal, with sketches of some of the heritage and historical attractions I feel particularly drawn to on my travels to towns and cities around the UK. I have a dedicated Instagram Stories highlight where these will be aded for you to see, before the sketchbook gets sent off after Christmas.
I'm also a member of two Urban Sketchers groups, and although we're not currently able to meet in person, I'm excited for when we can get out and sketch on location again.
My Instagram is @lovebritishhistorypics but my sketches and artwork are all under the new account @sketcherjoey. I'd love to see you there!
Want to buy a sketch, or commission one of your own? Check out my Historic Sketches page for all the details.
You might also like my articles on Drawing Historic Buildings and Sketching Anne Boleyn.
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