Category: London

An arty time.

17/4/2016

Channelling Monet. Colour planned on site but added later.

Sketched inside the exhibition.

On Wednesday, I headed to town with the first stop at the Royal Academy to see the Painting the Garden: Monet to Matisse exhibition. It was the most inspiring exhibition I have seen in a long time and I just want to draw and paint gardens.

Next stop was at my favourite London gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, where I went from inspiring paintings to amazing photography in the Vogue 100: A hundred years of style.

Arriving early to meet friends and fellow artists, Jean Edwards & Minnie, I took inspiration from the Monet exhibition and sketched the pub focusing on the garden. (above).

After dinner, it was off to the Tower of London. Arriving early I used the 15 minute wait to sketch the Shard. (below)

We were at the Tower of London for a fabulous evening at #DrawnattheTower with Art Macabre: Ravens and Morbid Corvids. I started off drawing the RavenMaster, who was a fount of knowledge on everything corvid down to the naming of the birds: he was holding Gripp. After a couple of sketches of Gripp, I moved on to the pairs of ravens in their cages. They are only caged at night and roam freely around the Tower during the day. The ravens were very challenging to sketch and moved a lot, my results were not helped by my butterfly brain wating to take photos and chat to the Raven Master: love interesting people. I think my last sketch, drawn on black paper, is the most successful and I have hung it up in the studio. Judge for yourself as here they all are:

After all that artistic input, I've been very busy drawing and planning prints since coming home. I especially want to get on with my Bourne Mill gardening project. What have you been working on?

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Titleless

16/8/2015

Whilst my sketching mojo has made a small comeback this week, I seem to have lost my words, hence the non-title of this post.

On Monday, I had 20 minutes to have a cuppa before a meeting in Somerset House. I sat on the terrace and had to sketch my view of the London Eye.

On Wednesday, I had to go to Maldon and with a spare half hour started to sketch an amazing garden-covered barge.

I didn't have time to add colour, so I did it at home later.

Thursday I was stuck in the hairdresser's for ages, so grabbed my A6 Laloran sketchbook.

I'm a bit concerned as I don't recognise that old lady in the mirror.

Hair colour 2015. Pencil

I sketched myself in the same position in 2010. I remember that I didn't wear my glasses and had to squint at the book.

Hair colour 2010. Ink in A6 moleskin.

Then yesterday, I joined the Essex & Suffolk Sketchers at Henny fete, where I visited a local garden, which happened to be serving cream teas. Using a Daler A5 sketchbook, I sketched it to justify eating it despite my ever expanding waistline.

Cream tea in watercolours.

Finally, I did a very quick sketch trying to capture a feeling of the quintessential English fete, whilst my assistant dug herself a hole.

As it was so colourful, I used a rainbow pencil by Lyra in my A5 Daler sketchbook.

My assistant checks my perspective.

Henny fete.

So that was my sketching week. Now if I could only think of a title...

Drinking and drawing...

2/8/2015

... talking and playing.

3rd Essex & Suffolk Sketchers DrinkDraw event.

Here I am sketching.

On Friday night, I had arranged for the Essex and Suffolk sketchers to have a 3rd DrinkDraw evening. These evenings are proving to be very successful and we had a good turn out again.

We went to the Rose and Crown in Wivenhoe, which has this great quayside beer garden. The above photo shows us hard at work sketching the estuary, boats, pub and more.

I spent most of my time chatting and/or playing with my assistant, who likes the drinkdraw evenings out, than painting. oh well there's always next month.

Lowtide on the River Colne.

More talking than sketching occurred last Saturday too. It was the #48th Worldwide Sketchcrawl day, so I arranged to join the Drawing London on Location group at the Geffrye Museum in Hoxton. Unfortunately, my sketching mojo didn't come too. I was ready to sketch on the train but... it was packed as the Norwich train had been offloaded onto the train I caught. I found a seat, got sketchbook and glasses out and... the man next to me proceeded to tell me all about his life as a cruise ship pianist. Arriving at the museum, it was one of those days that the scale of the building was intimidating and the gardens stunning but... nothing grabbed my attention. I decided a cup of tea was the solution, which it was as I loved the organic lamps and was lucky enough to have the people I was drawing stay as long as I sketched.

The Geffrye cafe.

After another wander around looking at the exhibits, I chatted to a few other sketchers, then decided to head off to look for my sketching mojo elsewhere. As my lack of results on Friday show, it hadn't come back by then. Fingers crossed I relocate it this week.

Silvertown

18/5/2015

Silo D, watercolour in A4 sketchbook.

Just over a week ago, I was fortunate enough to be one of eight London Urbansketchers invited to draw at the Silvertown redevelopment site. I didn't realise there were still areas of London Docklands, which were not all sparkly and new. However, Silvertown is a huge wasteland, with remnants of the recent London Olympics, the huge Millennium Mill (previous millennium not this one), a grade 2 listed grain silo, lots of rubble, street art, and wildlife.

You can read about the mills redevelopment here on the BBC.

We were not allowed into the mill as there is currently a massive operation to remove asbestos, but we decked out in hi-vis vests and allowed to spread out throughout the site.

It's not often you need a hi-vis jacket as part of your sketching kit, is it?

With a Payne's Grey sky and a bitterly cold wind, I wandered around to find a place to start. The mill itself was too daunting for a first sketch, so instead I ended up sat up a grassy bank, part of the old Olympic London Pleasure Gardens, to sketch the silo. With it's predominantly white facade, I started with the Payne's Grey, with a touch of indigo, sky to outline its bulk.

The wind was so cold, despite my layers of fleece, I seriously considered leaving, but opportunities like this are rare, so I continued until it was time for lunch, where we all huddled in a patch of sun behind a corrugated fence for shelter.

With patches of sunshine, it was time to tackle the mill... I was drawn (excuse the pun) to the street art and decided to try and capture a snippet of that along with the large painted advert on one face of the mill. I started loosely in pencil, to try not to get to caught up in details, then added watercolour. I'm not sure how successful it was. What do you think?

Finally, I wanted to capture a little of the current work, sketching the scaffolding and sign, but I was cold and not concentrating by that point, and so it remains hidden in my sketchbook.

Urbansketchers and photographers have been invited to record the redevelopment of the site as it progresses over the years, which is why we were there, and I hope I am one of the ones who gets to go back again.

Finally, a big thank you to James Hobbs who organised the day. Check out his report and amazing Silvertown sketches here: Silvertown's Dereliction.

Millennium Mills, finally in sunshine, seen from the bridge to Custom House at Excel as I left.

Waiting

25/11/2014

Café at National Gallery. Ink in Moleskin sketchbook

On Saturday, I went to London to see some of the exhibitions. Whilst waiting for my friend to arrive, I sketched in the National Gallery's café.

I didn't have any more time to sketch as my friend and I saw
three exhibitions starting with Rembrandt: The Late Works at the National. Then it was round the corner to the NPG to see Grayson Perry's, Who Are You? and finally the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2014. All worth seeing!

I'm a total Grayson Perry convert after seeing his exhibition and then watching the backstory documentaries.

What exhibitions have you seen recently?

At the ATP World Tour Finals

12/11/2014

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Loved sketching the tennis fans

As many of you know, I am a tennis fan and was able to go to the ATP World Tour finals in London yesterday. I took a few photos, watched lots of amazing tennis, and managed a few sketches between the afternoon and evening session. Hope you like them.

Queuing to enter the evening session.

Andy Murray has a warm up session.

I think the last sketch I did, which is of the fans (top) is the best, Do you agree?

A tennis fan at the O2 arena.

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Granary Square, N1

20/10/2014

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Fountains, Super5 pen & watercolour in A4 sketchbook

Yesterday, I joined the Drawing London on Location meetup group for a day drawing around Granary Square, just north of Kings Cross, which was held in collaboration with the new House of Illustration.

I enjoyed the day, and it's a very interesting area, but feel I could have got better results. Here are some of them.

The Book Barge. Soluble ink & watercolour A4 sketchbook

Musicians on The Book Barge, watercolour A4

Train people on route to London, A6 Laloran sketchbook

What did you do yesterday?

btw. The next post will be another from Brazil.

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Monologue

13/9/2014

Wren's St Mary Abchurch 2 August 2014

A while ago I received an email from Monologue asking if I would like to review their sketchbooks. Naturally I said yes and a little while later a courier delivered this lovely parcel.

They are designed to be used with a variety of mediums listed on the wrap: charcoal, chalk, graphite, pencil, pastel, oil pastel, wax crayon, red chalk, acrylic, collage, oil, marker, spray, tempera... Everything except ink, my prefered medium. As I am part way through the A5 Seawhite sketchbook, I decide I would test drive the soft cover A4, with holding elastic. It has a handy niche on the edge keeping it both in place and away from the pages - neat!

Wren's Monument to the Great Fire of London

Pete Scully had arranged a sketchcrawl of Wren's buildings, so I thought that was a good time to testdrive the sketchbook. Aren't new ones scary? At the meeting point lots of peeps were busy sketching the buildings or craning their necks to draw the top of Monument. Eek. I drew 2 construction workers on their break at the bottom. The sketchbook liked my pen, so that was a relief.

Getting my map of locations, & sticker for my sketchbook, I drew the church clock and spire of St. Magnus the Martyr listening to the chimes of the bells. I added the watercolour, which the page handled well I am very lazy, mixing colours direct on the drawing with quite a bit of water. It crinkled a little, but not much at all.

St Magnus the Martyr

Next it was St Marys Abchurch and I loved its poor green, damp covered, neglected side. I spent a long time on this sketch as I built up the watercolour glazes to emulate what I saw. I'm pleased with the result and the way the Monologue sketchbook took the paint.

Sketching St Mary Abchurch rear entrance

I'm not so pleased with my last sketch of St Mary le Bow Church as the church is soooo vast, my initial marks were way off. The café shot is the best way to view it. I then had to head home to walk my lovely assistant and missed the final meet up at St Paul's.

I had a lovely day, thanks to Pete's planning, and look forward to using the sketchbook more as so far I think it's really good. They certainly should add ink to the list of mediums that it's good for. Now, I must try something other than watercolour or ink for a thorough test.

Monologue's facebook page is:
https://www.facebook.com/ilovemonologue

Website: http://www.ilovemonologue.com

(This post was first published on August 18, 2014 on artofanomad.blogspot.com)

WWSketchCrawl #44: London

27/7/2014

44th WWSketchCrawl. Photo thanks to Isabel Carmona.

Train people

Poor neglected blog. ... Here's the beginning of my attempt to catch up.

The 12th July was WW SketchCrawl day (more info here) and being in the UK, I traveled up to London for the SketchCrawl arranged jointly by the meetup group Drawing London on Location and the Urban Sketchers from London and the Oxford Workshops.

I started my day sketching people on the train using a blue Micron in the SeaWhite sketchbook. Then, at Charlies' Café in Portobello Road, I met up with some sketchy friends, including some from Barcelona, and leant against the café to sketch from the shade. (Who would expect London to be hot in the summer?!)

Opposite Charlies' Café, Portobello Rd.

After a while, James, Nathan, Evelyn and myself, braved the huge mass of tourists in Portobello Road as we searched out both a shady spot and something to draw. The crowds kept blocking our view even as we sat behind the stalls.

I left the others in search of some food and headed off the main road where I met Emily sitting outside Biscuiteers. Ordering a cuppa, I joined her in sketching the Mediterraneo restaurant opposite.

Mediterraneo, Kensington Park Rd.

With Spanish sketcher Swasky. Photo J Hobbs

As it was almost time for the end of the sketchcrawl, I headed to meet the others at the Castle pub, Portobello Road, where we chatted about our day and shared our sketchbooks.

After the group photo of the sketchers who were still around, I headed home and did this final sketch of a man texting.

Did you participate in a sketchcrawl? You are welcome to leave a link to your blog post on it in the comments.

3 weeks in June: UK sketches

26/6/2014

Armed with a new Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook, the 1st of June saw me in Muscat International departures. My assistant was also flying with me, but down in the hold, for a 3 month long trip in the UK. Killing time I sketched some of the people in the lounge and recorded this thought about the sketchbook: "I've not tried one before, but so far I'm impressed by how the ink goes on."

I've been very busy with family stuff, so it was a week later I tried out watercolour in the Seawhite. On Facebook I wrote "I'm loving the Seawhite sketchbook so far. Lots of water and glazes on this, but the page has barely wrinkled. Shame the sketch is overworked."

The following day, Wilkin & Sons Ltd. (THE jam makers) had an open farm day. With so many changes, Degas didn't like being left so I popped there quickly and sketched the people tasting jams. I sat under a tree and added the colour before I dashed home

Next, was a sketch of me NOT watching the opening match of the World Cup football.

The following day, I went to London to attend the artists' evening at The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Having just missed a train, I started to draw the footbridge between platforms. The next train arrived too soon, so on board I added the colour to the unfinished sketch.

At the RA later that day, I sketched the people enjoying the sunshine and drinks in the courtyard.

The next evening England were playing their match and a neighbour had a pre-match barbeque. Feeling like a peeking Tom, I quickly sketched them from an upstairs window.

The football theme continued with my next sketch - a slice of an England football cake.