What to see and sketch on Sunday at Trinity Buoy Wharf

Urban Sketchers London is participating in Draw Britain Now - a big drawing event on Sunday 16th November 2014 at Trinity Buoy Wharf - between 12 and 4pm.

Trinity Buoy Wharf is on the western side of the mouth of the River Lee (where the boats are - bottom right)
Opposite the O2 in the image below
Click to see an even larger picture

Anybody can come along and do a sketchcrawl with Urban Sketchers London (a good option for those who like to do lots of sketch and draw whatever takes their fancy in whatever order they choose - you choose how you record the wharf)

You can draw the historic wharf with the Dining Room Drawing Club

People are also participating in a free Getting Started with Drawing workshop with The Independent Art School 

The event has been organised in collaboration with The Campaign for Drawing, Trinity Buoy Wharf (Urban Space Management) and The Guild of St. George.

If you tweet about this event on Sunday can you please also use

• the #The_Big_Draw hashtag if you want your tweet retweeted by the Campaign for Drawing - Twitter: @CampaignDrawing
• #urbsketchlondon if you want your tweet retweeted by Urban Sketchers London - Twitter: @UrbSketchLondon

The Trinity Buoy Wharf account is @artsTBW

What you can sketch

Here are some things you can see and sketch at the Sketchcrawl on Sunday at Trinity Buoy Wharf in East London.

Trinity Buoy Wharf: Some of the main locations

• Trinity Buoy Wharf Jubilee Pier - has views of The O2 and the River Thames - sort of obvious really when you see the location (see top pic)!  (There is no clipper service at the weekend so it's possible this may be closed - but the views are still visible from the bank - as is the Pier!)
• A lighthouse -the only one in London!  It was built in 1866 to be a place to test new forms of lighting for lighthouses. This is where the 19th-century physicist Michael Faraday conducted optical experiments.
• Two lightships - the Lightships LV93 and LV95 are moored here - one on the Thames side and one on the River Lea side
• Container City - featured in numerous television programmes, brightly painted live/work spaces in stacked containers (More info).  The stacked containers of Container City II have a ziggurat shape. Read Living in a box to understand more about the people who live here.

Urban Space Holdings have created a mad little urban quarter totally unlike the high-finance citadels and luxury-living elsewhere in Docklands. A sense of time and tide, lapping at the beyond, permeates the place. Let’s hope it survives yuppification, sea-level rise and the collapse of civilisation, at least until the music stops.
Herbert Wright explores: Trinity Buoy Wharf \ Le Cool London

• The Driftwood Cafe  - a cafe in a container
• Fatboys Diner - an authentic American Diner and the subject of the winning painting in this year's Sunday Times Watercolour Competition

Kathryn Maple with her prizewinning watercolour painting of Fat Boys Diner
(See review - Kathryn Maple wins Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2014)

Sue Grayson Ford - the Director of The Campaign for Drawing - will be on site to open the Electrician's Shop Gallery from noon, so sketchers can collect there, see the exhibition of drawings, paintings and textiles focused on the urban (and occasionally rural) scene, use the loos and leave any heavy items. The Gallery will remain open until 5pm.

This space is currently displaying the Recording Britain Now: 2014 John Ruskin Prize Exhibition (which opened last week) until 30th November 2014. You can also visit for free when it is open - on Wednesdays – Sundays, 12 - 5pm, and Thursdays, 4 - 8pm

How to get there

The address for travel apps and satnavs is The Electrician's Shop Gallery, Trinity Buoy Wharf,64 Orchard Place, London E14 0JY (Tel. 020 8351 1719)

The website provides advice about how to get to Trinity Buoy Wharf.

Below are links to the Transport for London Travel Planner - the page shows options from:

• Mile End
• Stratford 
• Greenwich
• Oxford Circus

Just use the Edit button and change the "From" location to make it relevant to you.

Here's a map of the location from Google Maps

Some history about Trinity Buoy Wharf

In 1515, Trinity House was granted a charter by King Henry VIII.Trinity Buoy Wharf was where Trinity House used to build and maintain the buoys and lightships which were used to aid navigation around the Kent, Essex and Suffolk coasts.  The development was created in the early nineteenth century and closed down in 1988 when it was purchased by the London Docklands Development Corporation. Urban Space Management acquired the site in 1996 and redeveloped the site to become an urban centre for the arts.

You can read more about the history on their website.

What to see and sketch on Sunday at Trinity Buoy Wharf