Saturday saw one of the largest gatherings we've had, as we joined forces with the Drawing London on Location Meetup.com group and members of the Sketchcrawl.com forum to participate in the 38th Worldwide Sketchcrawl. It was hard to keep track of the exact numbers, but I counted at least 70 people who made it to the Tate Modern and surrounding Bankside to spend the day sketching on a very chilly day.
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| Wherever you looked in the gallery there were people sketching! |
I was hoping to get some outdoor sketching done, but it proved too cold for me, and after 20 minutes or so I had to give up and go back inside, where it was (slightly) warmer.
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| Drawn whilst wearing gloves. Tricky. |
I was in more of a drawing people mood than architecture, and there was no shortage of interesting subjects to draw, most too engrossed in tea, conversation or looking at art to notice the growing army of sketchers around them. I spent a fair bit of time in the cafe on the first floor, before moving up to the cafe on the third, overlooking the Thames:
The best position I found though was on the slope of the Turbine Hall, looking through the window and into the bookshop, giving quite a unique angle and a perfect spot to draw people unnoticed.
Having abandoned the pencil for these last few sketchcrawls, my productivity for the day has really shot up, and if they're not as polished or geometrically accurate as I'd like, the benefit of getting a lot of different subjects down is worth it, and is quite freeing; I feel like I'm learning more from making mistakes in pen than having the safety net of drafting it out in pencil first.
As ever, I met a lot of great artists and fascinating people, but still managed to not meet everyone. For everyone that went, don't forget there's the Flickr group pool you can join to post and see drawings from the day. We're looking to get some of the future sketchcrawls' dates and locations decided in advance and posted up on the new London Sketchcrawls page, so watch this space! and if you have any suggestions about where you'd like to go to draw for the upcoming ones, post a comment below!
See you at the next one!
Hi, I love this idea but live down in the south west near exeter, how would I go about starting a group in my area, or find out if there is one already?
ReplyDeleteHi Nina - someone was interested in starting one a year or two ago in Exeter.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sketchcrawl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=5096
Leave a post on the forum there, tweet about it, put something on your website, get a few friends together: you'll have a crowd before you know it.
Thanks for encouraging me, yes you're right, I should just get on and organize one, and if there's one already I guess we'll meet up sometime!
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