Fortune Park

Lovely little park just off Whitecross Street, and close to my old flat. I've sat here many times drinking coffee - there is a coffee stall in the park called Giddy Up.

Lunch time sketch at the Tower of London

A (very distorted) view of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, from the terrace at Costa Coffee.

On Broadway (market)

Had a very nice dinner at Solche Cilician cafe a few months ago when it was warm. It's on Broadway Market in Hackney, East London. You can see the Haggerston gasometer in the distance.

Regents Canal view

A sketch from last summer.  Regents Canal near the Tow Path cafe.  A lovely spot.

Sketching Jack's London

The Ten Bells pub in Spitalfields, East London. Apparently Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly, two of Jack the Rippers victims frequented this pub. According to Wikipedia 'Annie Chapman may have drunk at the pub shortly before she was murdered; and it has been suggested that the pavement outside of the pub was where Mary Kelly picked up clients as a prostitute'. Despite its history or because of it, it's a great pub with lots of character. The interior it is decorated with impressive original Victorian tile.

I did this sketch a few months ago at the 'Sketching Jacks London' sketchcrawl organised by Pete Scully.  It was a fun evening and great to meetup with some people from USk Barcelona....and perfect weather.  Pete gave everyone one of his mini sketchbooks and here's a few drawing in did in mine.....

Relaxing in Greenwich Park

Another drawing from a few months back..in the summer. Relaxing in Greenwick Park after the obligatory walk up the hill to the observatory.

Pavilion Cafe

I've been slack lately and have not uploaded any drawings for a while. Here's one from back in the summer. The Pavilion Cafe is in a beautiful location next to the pond in Victoria Park, East London. It's a fantastic spot to eat breakfast outdoors in the summer.

Piccadilly Circus

Hanging out with the tourists in Piccadilly Circus (a few months back). Several people took photos of me while I was doing this drawing and the cowboy street performer guy gave me the thumbs up.

Meet me by the lifts

A woman waiting for someone at the Barbican Centre

More from the Urban Sketching Symposium (in Barcelona back in July)....

Veronica Lawlor's 'Designing Barcelona' workshop

The workshop was held at L'Illa de la Discordia (Block of Discord), which is a section of Passeig de Gràcia in the Eixample district. It is famous because of the contrasting and crazy architectural styles of four buildings that were designed in the early 1900's by four of Barcelonas leading modernist architects - Lluis Domenechi Montaner, Antoni Gaudi, Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Enric Sagnier.

Veronica encouraged us to experiment with different materials and using different techniques like using lines, marks, colour. We started doing small quick thumbnails...

and finished by doing one larger drawing of the block. The area was very busy, people everywhere, shopping, in cafes, tourists taking photos and cars racing by.

'Life Between Buildings: Capturing the Energy' workshop with James Richard

Capturing the energy in Placa de Catalunya. A large square where the old city meets the more modern 19th century Eixample district and also where two of Barcelona's main streets (La Rambla and Passeig de Gràcia) begin. This square is always busy, lot of people and pigeons.

This is a very simple run down of the process we followed...we started by drawing people of various sizes to create depth, with a main character in the foreground, added other details such as trees, cars, street lights, signs, etc then buildings. Adding darks/blacks to create contrast and finishing off with colour.

Train to Chippenham

On the train to Chippenham to visit friends last weekend.

Tate to Tate

Tate to Tate sketch crawl 16 Aug 2013. Tate Modern to Tate Britain. It is actually a long way. As I started late I didn't go to the south side of the river but kept to the north. I jumped on Barclays bikes three times between sketching stops and made it to the Tate Britain at the finish time of 6.30pm but didn't see any other sketchers!

Oxo Tower






London Eye





Tate Britain

 

Admiring the view

The view from the Barbican out towards St Giles' Cripplegate Church and the city.

More from the Urban Sketching symposium....Rhythm in the City

Here are some of my sketches from Inma Serano's 'Rhythm in the City!' workshop.  I like Inma's style and enthusiasm.

Treating buildings as if they are alive, forgetting perspective. Drawing people by starting with a coloured stain then adding the details.

These sketches where both done at the medieval Placa del Rei.

and these two at Temple D'August, with the towering Roman columns. It was an unplanned stop to shelter from the rain.

Lunch at J&A Cafe

Yesterday I had lunch in the courtyard at J&A Cafe in Old Street. I had a very tasty quiche and salad followed by a pint of Meantime beer. There was a friendly dog waiting patiently with two woman at another table.

 

4th International Urban Sketching Symposium in Barcelona!

Last week I was in Barcelona to attend the urban sketching symposium.

Over 150 urban sketchers from all over the world met to draw together, learn and have fun.  A number of workshops, demo's, social 'drink and draw' sessions and public 'sketchcrawls' were held over three days in various location around central Barcelona.

It was brilliant!  I loved it and Barcelona.  I learnt so much and met many friendly and talented people...and ate lots of delicious food.  It was intense, inspiring an fun.


Sketching and happy in Barcelona (Thanks for the photos Melody).


Here are some sketches I did before the symposium started....

En-route to Barcelona! (another easyjet sketch)



A drink in El Born.  Barcelona has so many lovely squares and plazas with great outdoor cafe/bars.



and Tapas!



A work in progress.....Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia

on the hill in Montjuic at the Joan Miro Foundation.  I particularity like the sculptures on the terrace.

Meeting fellow sketchers (and nervous sketching) at the C3B Bar the night before the symposium.

I'll post my sketches from the workshops in another post.

Dinner in the garden after work

It was very hot today (for London). The high was 34 degrees Celsius and it is still 32 degrees at 7.30pm.

....meanwhile on the other side of the world, central New Zealand and Wellington (my home city) is still being shaken by aftershocks after a 6.5 magnitude earthquake on Sunday.

Kew Garden

A friend organised a small sketching get together at Kew Garden last month. I particularly liked this little cactus garden. The weather was perfect and it was a lovely day. We finished off sampling some of the fine beers at 'The Botanist' brewery/pub nearby.

A day sketching in Greenwich

Sketching meetup in Greenwich on 20 April 2013. The weather was perfect and lots of people were out enjoying it. Approximately 40 sketchers met at Islands Gardens in and morning and loosely followed a route through the Foot tunnel to Greenwich, around the extremely busy covered market and up the hill to the Royal Observatory (home of Greenwich Mean Time). We ended late afternoon at the lovely Trafalgar Tavern, perfectly situated on the Thames.


A communications van setting up near the entrance to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel in preparation for the London Marathon the following day.

Fellow sketchers admiring the view from Island Gardens across the Thames towards Greenwich	The Cutty Sark floating on it's magnificent new glass visitors centre. The Cutty Sark is the last surviving tea clipper ship.
A busker in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel.	The south side entrance to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. I love the style of the red brick and glassed domed entrance buildings. The tunnel, which opened in 1902, passes under the Thames and links Island Gardens (at the bottom of the Isle of Dogs) with Greenwich.

Koyul sushi stall at the Greenwich Covered Market.