Drawing with London Urban Sketchers

Yesterday I joined the London Urban Sketchers for the first time. We were to meet on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral at 11 o'clock but I was late and so after catching up with the organiser, Katherine Tyrrell, I headed down to the river and sketched the view across the Thames to the Tate Modern.

View across the Thames from just right of the Millennium Bridge

We all met up again on the roof terrace of One New Change to sketch the fabulous views and pose for a group photo. We also gathered all our sketches from the morning together. It was great to see
everyone's different styles.

The dome of St Pauls

Materials and equipment used, left to right. Winsor and Newton 
A4 sketchbook, Moleskine large watercolour sketchbook,
 Winsor and Newton Bijou watercolour box ,Uni Kuru Toga
 mechanical pencil,Uni Pin fineliner, Pentel waterbrush

Sketchbooks!

Group photo in Paternoster Square 

 We met up for a final time in Paternoster Square for another group photo (including a photo bomber, far right!) and another look at everyone's sketches. After saying our goodbyes a few of us repaired to a nearby coffee shop to compare the contents of our sketch kits!

More sketchbooks!

All in all I had a fantastic day and I can't wait to do it again next month when we are going to Kew Gardens on the 16th of May! Details of future London events can be found here.

Thanks so much to Katherine Tyrrell for organising the event. It was great fun and I made some new friends! Urban Sketchers London post about the event is here.

London Urban Sketchers

London Urban Sketchers' Sketchcrawl - Sunday 26th April 2015

Pen and watercolour sketch of St Pauls.

I'm going to join the next London Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl which will be at the Millennium Bridge North Bank, St Paul's Cathedral, and One New Change - The Rook Terrace. All the details are on the Urban Sketchers London blog. This event is being organised by Katherine Tyrrell and details are also on her Travels with a Sketchbook blog.
The sketch above of St Pauls was done a few years ago from the cafe of the Tate Modern.

You can find out more about Urban Sketchers at their main blog at urban sketchers dot org.

"Urban Sketchers is a network of artists around the world who draw the cities where they live and travel to. Our mission is to "Show the World, One Drawing at a Time." Visit our main blog at urban sketchers dot org for more information."

Sketching the Market Square

It's too cold, wet and windy at the moment for sketching outdoors (for me at least), so I've retreated to the Cambridge branch of Marks and Spencer over the course of a few days to sketch from the cafe. The tables by the windows on the second floor offer a splendid view of the Market Square and St Mary's the Great church with Kings College chapel in the background. The aspect I chose to sketch looks across the market stalls and down St Mary's Street toward the Senate House lawn.

Market Square pen sketch

Getting a window side table to sketch from wasn't easy! The cafe in Mark and Spencer is very popular and everyone wants to sit by the window. I had to lurk for about 20 minutes, surreptitiously browsing home wares while waiting for a table to become free. As soon as a table became vacant I dumped my bag and coat and went to queue up for a pot of peppermint tea and a delicious cheese scone, but the service was not the fastest and by the time I came back to my table my coat and bag had gone! Seeing my look of alarm an adjacent diner told me that a staff member had taken them for safekeeping as she thought they had been left behind by a previous occupant. My things were quickly returned to me and no one else had taken the table so no harm was done and I was grateful to the staff for their vigilance. On the next visit I got my tea before sitting down at a table as close to the window as I could and waited until a table became free. It took longer this time as I needed to get the same table as before to continue sketching the same view.

Market Square pen and watercolour sketch

So lessons learnt on this trip.

• If sketching from a popular eating venue get there early to ensure the position you want. (This also allows more time to complete the drawing, I had to return to the  same spot to finish my sketch as I hadn't allowed enough time and the light was fading.)
• Get your food or drink before you sit down even if the seat you want isn't immediately available. You can quickly switch seats later. 
• If possible reconnoitre the venue first to check the best view, time of day etc. 
• Be prepared to wait! (You can always sketch your fellow diners while you wait!)

Trees

Woodland. Pen and gouache.

This week I have taken several walks between Histon and Girton, where there are numerous footpaths through fields and newly planted woodland. I have been trying out a set of Caran D'ache Fancolor gouache paints (which I intend to do a review of at some point). I think they are really childrens paints but I wanted a set of gouache pans to take out and about as an alternative to watercolours. I also took a handful of Neocolour 2 pastels and some tube paints as I wasn't sure how strong the pans would be.

Sketching in Spain

Fruit Sculpture

Shadey Corner

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Last year I spent two weeks in the village of Tamariu, on the Costa Brava in Spain.

While there I managed a few sketches. The three below are sketches in the Botanic Gardens in Cap Roig, Calella. This bowl of fruit is a quirky water feature

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Femme du Jardin

Villa in Calella

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                                                   Palafrugell

Palafrugell Market

 

Tamariu

 

The road into Tamariu was precipitous to say the least but worth it for the view. Calella is a short distance along the coast and Palafrugell is the nearest large market town. I came here many years ago as child and am happy to say it is much the same as I remember it, beautiful and unspoilt.

Open Gardens

Cawcutts, pen and wash, watercolour pencil

On Sunday our villages held an Open Gardens Day in aid of Histon Feast, Emmaus UK and Voluntary Service Overseas. In all there were 14 gardens open to the public, and I managed to visit five of them. Cawcutts was my first port of call. This house was originally the home of the Chivers family. Below is an extract from the programme.

...entering the garden to the left of the house, you see set amidst grey stone slabs, some Gertrude Jekyll type planting backed by a shrub and woodland area. Turning towards the main part of the garden there is a glorious rose trellis, and a patio area behind the house designed for dining outIt was a beautifully sunny and warm day and I was lucky enough to find a vacant bench to sit on while I did the sketch above.

Impington windmill, Cambs

© Copyright Rodney Burton
licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

A short walk brought me to The Windmill, taken over eight years ago by Pippa and Steve Temple, who are gradually restoring the windmill to full working order and taming...

...a gloriously "romantic" garden decaying through neglect. Gradually replacing the dead trees by new, brambles by roses, clematis and honeysuckles we have created a path through the wilder areas. Maintaining the romance there are beds for different seasons, a wisteria archway, a herb bank, a rose and clematis pergola and underway a bed of grasses, bog gardens and a wild flower bank

Tours of the windmill were also on offer and I rashly bought a ticket. All was well while we were guided around the exterior and even up to the first floor, but one look at the ladder up to the next level was enough to convince me that there was no way I was going any further (I am not good at heights) so I chickened out and went and had a nice sit down and a peice of cake!


Next stop was a relatively new house on an estate at the far end of the village, not all that promising you might think, but this estate was built on the site of Impington Hall (home of Samuel Pepys' uncle) and the beautiful garden contains what was once the ornamental lake, and is flanked by a London Plane tree that was planted by Capability Brown.





Heading out of the estate and across the road brought me to Burgoynes House

The garden comprises three distinct areas, a small parkland area in front of the house, with several magnificent trees set in wide lawns including chestnut, beech and whitebeam. On one side leading off the terrace is an enclosed garden, which is walled down on side, crating a beautiful secluded space.

In this space was an intriguing piece of sculpture which was just asking to be sketched. It is made out of a whole trunk of a willow which had to be felled as it was growing too close to the house. Each twisting branch represents a member of the family and is carved to represent something important to them eg binary code to represent computing.

I just had time to visit one more garden. This was a complete contrast to the stately home type gardens I had seen so far, it was much smaller, and full of quirky ornaments and odd pieces of furniture! The owners say it is a haven for wildlife, but the presence of two cats made me wonder about that!

By now it was 6 o'clock and the gardens were closing, so time to head home. My newly purchased pedometer says I have done 13,478 steps 0r 5.9 miles!

This was the second event of this kind and it is hoped to be repeated biennially. The garden owners and organisers have put in a tremendous amount of effort and hopefully raised a substantial amount of money for the supported charities. I look forward to the next one when hopefully I can get to the gardens I missed yesterday!


Finally, here is the kit I took with me.

The Immortal Stone

Chinese jades from the Neolithic period to the twentieth century

Jades from the museum’s collection covering the most important periods in Chinese history. Included will be jades for burial; animal sculptures and luxury utensils from the Ming and Qing periods and jades from the imperial collection, as well as fake jades from the late 19th to early 20th century. There will be a catalogue available to accompany this exhibition.

I visited this exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge last weekend. My first impression was that it was quite small, the Octagon is not very big, but I was soon absorbed by the exhibits. There is one fascinating exhibit depicting the various forms of forgery that have been used to make pieces of modern jade look like antiquities. They went to a lot of trouble to do this, copying pieces from catalogues and then scorching them to discolour the jade.

As photography is not allowed in the museum I pulled out my sketchbook to draw the horse below, but unfortunately the nib of my pen snapped and I had to complete the sketch with a non waterproof gel pen. I surreptitiously added watercolour using my tiny watercolour box and waterbrush as only dry media are allowed in the galleries, but it is so small that nobody noticed.

The exhibition is on until Sunday 31 May in the Octagon (Gallery 10)
Admission is free

Cactus Monday

Here is my contribution to Cactus Monday this week. It is a Zebra Plant done in Prismacolor and Faber Castell Polychromos coloured pencil in my A5 Winsor and Newton sketchbook. Hope you like it.

EDM 2 Draw lamp

EDM 2 pen and watercolour

This is the second item on the Every Day Matters list, a lamp at our local Chinese restaurant, The Pheonix. I've got a very long way to go to catch up!

Cat Sketches

Pen and wash in Winsor and Newton sketchbook

These are a few pages from my sketchbook, introducing Tom, (the black scruffy one), and Biscuit, the cute ginger and white one. No, I am not responsible for their names, they were both adopted.

As you can see, they like to sleep a lot.















Pen and wash in Winsor and Newton sketchbook


Pigment liner