Welcome to the website of Kelvin Martin, an artist with a penchant for drawing buildings, some pretty, some unusual, quite a lot that are historic, and all hopefully that are very interesting. Every building, no matter how modest, how new or old, has a story to tell, rooted in it’s surroundings and in it’s social history. His task is to put all that together in a simple and straightforward way; and that after all is the purpose of illustration.
Kelvin actually trained as a Graphic Designer and Illustrator more than 40 years ago, at Brighton Polytechnic (now the University of Brighton School of Art and Media). After that he got a little distracted and lurched sideways into youth work and education. Which explains why he has both a degree in Illustration and a Masters Degree in Education.
Now he has retired from that and is back drawing again. Retirement has offered the opportunity to travel, and this website allows him to post sketches and drawings from trips all over Europe and America. Anything might get drawn, from the grandest Spanish castle to the legendary 60ft high Giant Chicken of Marietta, Georgia. This is a learning process for Kelvin, when he was at college emails and scanning didn’t exist and photographs were still made using camera film, the iPad was a figment of someone’s imagination. Kelvin is grateful to his son Alistair for explaining the differences between PDFs and TIFFs, and for helping to create this website.
So, all the drawings are made simply and honestly. Mostly he use a tiny Moleskine 9cm x 14cm watercolour notebook, together with black Unipen waterproof pens in various sizes and Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolours. Other drawings are made using Cass watercolour paper and seriously old Rotring pens. Occasionally you might see something done using the Procreate programme on the iPad Pro, but that’s still a work in progress.
Kelvin hopes that you enjoy everything that’s on here, and if it makes you want to have a look at the real thing, go and explore for yourself. It’s so much fun.
Finally thank you to Hazel, his wife of over 40 years for her tolerance when he has decided that he really does need to draw a tatty church in some dreadful part of a small town, and for her patience over a coffee (and cake) in a tiny cafe whilst he gets a sketch down.
By the way, this really isn’t about commissions, but if you are looking for something, you can get Kelvin via [email protected]
Kelvin Martin
PS the portrait photo is not edited in any way, that’s just Kelvin in front of a poster advertising ‘ Girl with a Pearl Earring’ by Vermeer, c.1655, the star attraction of the Mauritshuis in Den Haag