The Shenkman Bar at the RA

I was invited to a Bloggers' Evening Preview of "Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined" at the Royal Academy of Arts on Thursday.

After visiting the Kurt Jackson exhibition (closes 1 February) at The Redfern Gallery and Messums, I made my way past the gallery desert which now fills the eastern side of Cork Street (see this week's Guardian article - Galleries are forced out of their historic London home) and through the Burlington Arcade to the RA.

I filled the gap between the gallery closing and the bloggers preview starting with a cup of tea in the new Shenkman Bar in the basement of the former Keepers House.

At last - a comfy seat to sit down on and have a cup of tea - and a sketch - have returned to the RA!

I much preferred the black leather sofas in the former Friends Room but the banquettes are infinitely preferable to the hard seats in the current Friends Room. Lots of opportunities too for people sketching.

The Shenkman Bar at the RA
pen and sepia ink in Moleskine Sketchbook
© Katherine Tyrrell

It's worth taking a sketchbook to the "Sensing Spaces" exhibition.  It's quite unlike anything else I've ever seen at the RA. Ostensibly about architecture it nonetheless seems to be about very large sculptural installations.  See images on my blog post on Making A Mark which follows later today.

The Shenkman Bar at the RA

Tuesday Night Geek Club

Costa, Gt Marlborough St W1. Pencil and watercolour 149 x 210 mm

The romance of intellectual artists gathering for meaningful discussion over a book and a newspaper, has been replaced by groups of laptops, all too eager to communicate their world view to anyone with a charger. But I was only there for observational reasons, and a medium latte.

Tuesday Night Geek Club

Around Covent Garden

James Hobbs, Neal's Yard, Covent Garden

I agree with Nathan: I enjoyed Sunday's sketchcrawl in Covent Garden also, and the exhibition at the new Timberyard cafe on Upper St Martin's Lane looks great. Congratulations to Adebanji, Nathan, Lis, Olha and Evelyn, and thanks to Darren for inviting us to show there.

Around Covent Garden

Sunday sketchcrawling!

Thanks to everyone who came out for our drawing day on Sunday, it was great to see you all!

For January we were pretty lucky with the weather, but nevertheless it was nice being inside and looking out!

The thing I enjoy most about these sketchcrawls is seeing everyone's different styles and approaches to drawing the same subjects, so if you were there and feel like sharing, you can do so in our Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/usklondon-grouppool/

There's already a few up there of Sunday's sketches from Lis and Evelyn, so check them out.

After downing a few coffees in Timberyard, we headed off to Neal's Yard, and there was even some sunshine to encourage us to try some outdoor sketching, before retreating into another nearby coffee shop to keep warm.
From Neal's Yard, we headed down to Trafalgar Square and finished with some sketches outside the National Gallery.


Here's my day's sketching.

Look out for another sketchcrawl around mid-March ! See you then.

Sunday sketchcrawling!