Category: People

Sketch meet: Concert in the park

22/5/2016

Impression of the bandstand and The Band of The Parachute Regiment.

Last Sunday, I arranged for the Colchester Sketchers to sketch at the bandstand in Colchester Castle Park where The Band of the Parachute Regiment were playing. The concert was great, the sun was out for the majority of the afternoon, and there was a good turn out of sketchers. The only negative has to be my wonky perspective and roof on my watercolour.

People in the audience.

Band leader

After doing the watercolour sketch, I did the two quick pencil sketches above.

What do you think of them? The band liked my watercolour.

*****

Next Sunday, if you are in the Colchester area, you will find me at the Farmers Market at Bourne Mill, where I have a table showing sketches, paintings and selling prints and cards. Pop by and say hello :)

Have a lovely week everyone.

Drinking and drawing

1/5/2016

Pencil sketch of Natasha Robertson at The Black Buoy's April/May Beer Festival 2016

I have just returned from the Black Buoy in Wivenhoe's May bank holiday real ale festival. My assistant and I sat outside sketching and listening to the music, although my assistant was more interested in the fish and chips.

Earlier this week, I arranged for the Colchester Sketchers to drink/draw at the Bricklayers. My first sketch of my Aspell's cider was the most successful and is shared below.

Direct watercolour sketch.

Finally, something different, I currently have my experimental piece hung at the Art Exchange where it was selected for the Celebrate Landscape exhibition. If you are in the area, pop in before it closes next Saturday.

Jo dibuixo i tu?

23/4/2016

Plaça dels Àngels.

Rafa serves. ©Sue Pownall 2016

I have just spent the last few days in Barcelona. On Wednesday, I flew over having left my assistant to stay with her dogsitter. After checking into my hotel, I headed straight to MACBA and spent and hour on the above sketch.

After the rain stopped, I spent Thursday at the Barcelona Open BancSabadell – Trofeo Conde de Godo. I saw Rafa win amongst other matches, but didn't sketch anything.

Friday morning, I headed out for breakfast and had to paint the girl at a nearby table. (below) I went straight in with paint as I didn't know how long she would be there. I had just snapped her surreptitiously, should have moved the menu, when she left.

From there, I visited the Fundació Antoni Tàpies and saw some interesting artwork and prints before heading to Passeig de Gracia. Being the day before Sant Jordi (Saint Georges), who is the patron saint of Catalonia, Gaudi's Casa Batlló had been covered in roses. It looked beautiful and still being early there were not too many people, so I sat on the street corner to sketch it.

Gaudi's Casa Battló covered in roses.

In the afternoon, I went to see some more art at the CaixaForum, which had an exhibition Impressionists and Moderns: Masterworks from The Phillips Collection.

Then went for a walk up to Barcelona's botanical garden. I sat and did a small watercolour, which I really enjoyed painting, surrounded by vegetation, bird song (including green parrots), and little else.

Afterwards, I had a wander around took lots of photos of the beautiful plants and flowers.

A glade in Jardí Botànic de Barcelona.

Yesterday was my last day and I spent it catching up with some friends. I still managed an incomplete sketch whilst waiting to meet a close friend for brunch. I wanted to capture some of the San Jordi celebrations, as I did last year (Sant Jordi 2015) but tables and more were still being set up, so started above them... and ran out of time.

Finally, a photo of Saint Georges dragon near Barcelona university.

*Jo dibuixo i tu? is Catalán for I draw, do you?

Essex Book Festival Lecture

13/3/2016

Lecture notes. ©Sue Pownall

The Essex Book Festival is on throughout March in various locations across the county. Due to other commitments, so far I have only attended a lecture at the University of Essex last Monday. It was called "From Print to Pixels: The Many Futures of Reading Kodachrome Travels: How colour changed the way we see the world." I went as I am interested in both colour and film, but have to confess I didn't get the connection to books. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture given by Professor Jeffery Geiger and realise I miss learning. Time to return to study?

3 moments around the lecture. ©Sue Pownall

Top image: In the sketch, I wanted to capture Prof. Geiger, but ended up getting so engrossed in what he was saying the page got covered in lecture notes. I did get the colour added at the same time. I'd forgotten, but when I studied at Essex my lecture notes often looked like this, as I strove to capture keywords and points.

Below: I started on the right-hand page where the three people were stood on the stage chatting prior to the lecture. It seems as if they were friends of the professor and sat behind me when it started. Top left is the woman who introduced the lecture. Then the final sketch on the bottom-left was made during the Q&A session and I loved her twisted body image.

Where have you sketched this week?

Tiptree Sings at Christmas

13/12/2015

I love going to see choirs sing at Christmas, so last night I went back to Tiptree to see a friend sing in the choir she belongs to. The setting was St Lukes church, which I have only drawn from the outside, so made sure I had coloured pencils alongside my sketchbook.

My first sketch was of some of the female choristers chatting before the concert. They were very animated and seemed quite excited which I hope I captured in the sketch. What do you think?

Listening to the lovely singing, I sketched the top drawing showing a section of the choir and the church.

I forgot to take the proof of on-location sketching shot until the choir was about to start singing in the second half of the concert, but hopefully gives a little idea of my view.

Other news: I was very flattered when Simone Ridyard asked me to contribute to her architectural sketching book, Archisketcher. Yesterday, I received my copy and the whole book is fabulous! I would thoroughly recommend buying it for your shelves because of the fabulous content, not because of my contribution :)

Finally, due to logistics the Essex&Suffolk Sketchers have renamed themselves Colchester Sketchers. The FB group is here: Colchester Sketchers

Have a good week everyone.

Freshers' Week

4/10/2015

View from Square 4 ©Sue Pownall 2015

Due to a cash flow issue, I am currently temping at the University of Essex. I only have 30 minutes for lunch but have managed to do a few sketches so far.

Tai chi demo in Square 4 ©Sue Pownall 2015

This one I did the week before...

Ivor Crewe lecture hall. ©Sue Pownall 2015

With a couple more weeks there, I wonder what I can do next.

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.

Barcelona boats, bars, ballerinas...

3/5/2015

Fleca els Angels, Carrer D'Elisabets.

... & some tennis.

Rosas Di San Jordi, Las Ramblas.

Before last Saturday's Barcelona sketchcrawl, see my previous post here, I had spent a couple of days in the city.

On Thursday, I went to the Barcelona Open, and got to realise a dream - to watch Rafael Nadal play in Spain whilst sat among a Spanish crowd. Mostly I was too busy watching the tennis to sketch, but I did manage the one below between matches.

Thursday was also Saint George's Day and everywhere people were handing out red roses. I was offered one first thing, but didn't accept as I was heading into the tennis stadium. I tried to sketch some in the Ramblas, but the crowds were massive and frequently obscured my view. The sketch to the right is the best I achieved.

The next day, I took an early morning walk and ended up at a café, where I'd had breakfast before the Urban Sketchers 2013 Symposium and had meant to sketch, so I did. (see above)

Stadium at Real Club de Tenis Barcelona

Barca Catalana - Jean et Marie

Then it was on to the Maritime Museum where I sketched a traditional Catalan fishing boat.

Late afternoon, I headed off to join the group Inky Fingers, Barcelona who had arranged to draw the contemporary dance company Las Carmelas.

It was a real challenge trying to capture their movements as they danced. Thankfully they also did some short poses. I used a pad of tonal pastel paper and a multi-coloured single lead pencil. I can't wait to draw with this group again.

Sketching Las Carmelas with Inky Fingers Barcelona.

Manchester sketchcrawl

20/3/2015

Sketching the River Irwell sat on Calatrava's Trinity Bridge.

Yesterday, I joined the Manchester, Yorkshire, and Society of Architectural Illustrators (SAI) for a sketchcrawl in Manchester. It was a surprisingly blue skied sunny day, but with an icy wind, which made outdoor sketching a challenge. As you can see from my sketches below, I alternated between outside and inside locations.

It was lovely to meet so many sketchers from all over (40+ at the interim lunch meeting) and hope to get up to Manchester and sketch again... albeit in a warmer month.

Jimmy

6/12/2014

Jimmy drawing. Pencil in moleskin sketchbook.

On a cold, grey, drizzly Thursday, Jimmy had his lunch at Sanctus then sat in my art class. Jimmy was refered to by the others as being a "Diddycoy", which is an old, often derogatory term, for someone who's parentage is not full gypsy. He is a lovely, cheerful, uneducated, old man speaking a dialect that I only understood one in three words. I gave him some paper and a pencil and he drew me drawings of the wagons (horse drawn carts and gypsy caravans) his dad used to make. He's had a hard life, if I understood half of the stories he told, and it is compounded now by his love of drink (he was sober) and health problems. He is very trusting, asking me to check his perscriptions for him, and loves talking. I don't know if I'm allowed to have him sit in with us, but I hope he comes back at least to stay out of the cold.

A proud man with his drawing. Photo taken/used with his permission.

You can help people like Jimmy get a meal by donating to Sanctus here: sanctus-home.com

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