Around Piccadilly: the team

Here are some photos of people in action around the Royal Academy on our recent gathering. It was good to see everyone who ventured out on such a cold, grey day, and to sit and compare notes (and warm up) at the end of the day. Thanks to Katherine for organising it, even if you couldn't come – we hope you're better soon.

And afterwards, at a cafe across the road from the Royal Academy...

You can find details of our next planned meetings here.

Around Piccadilly: the team

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

The Royal Academy of Art

I'm fascinated by the illustrious history of the Royal Academy of Art, and seeing exhibitions there is always a pleasure. I've been wanting to draw the outside of the building for a while now, so last week I made time to stop by and sketch it on a fiercely sunny day.

The Royal Academy of Art, Burlington House, Piccadilly

The Summer Exhibition is on at the moment, and the choices for display are always interesting, and often provokes debate about what should and shouldn't be called contemporary art. Don't get me started on that subject! But the story of one year when the RA rejected a sculpture but accepted and displayed the plinth it came with, believing it to be a separate work of art always makes me chuckle.

The Summer Exhibition has been held every year since 1769, the year after they were founded. The Royal Academy weren't always at Burlington House however. For a number of years they were based in Somerset House, where the Courtauld Institute is now housed.

Somerset House courtyard looking North

Eventually, they moved to share lodgings with another great London art institution, in the newly built National Gallery, in 1837, and then, as both continued to expand, moved to the present site 30 years after this.

National Gallery, Trafalgar Square

This last sketch was done while it was raining and quickly became the most uncomfortable location drawing I've done - I thought I'd found a sheltered spot on the steps of St Martins In the Fields, but as it rained harder my sketchbook was getting soaked, and I was desperately trying to finish as quickly as possible, one hand drawing, one hand holding the book, another hand balancing a broken umbrella...wait, I didn't have that many hands... which is probably why I got very wet, and cramp. I gave up and did the ink wash at home.

The Royal Academy of Art