Return to Silvertown

London's Urban Sketchers had their second visit to Silvertown, a 62-acre (25 hectare) development site in the East End that we have been invited to record as it gradually turns into the reality of the planners' vision. In the heart of London's old Royal Dockyard, and throbbing in the heyday of the British Empire, Silvertown began its decline in the 1960s, and is now a huge, barren wasteland next to City Airport that promises 3,000 new homes and 20,000 new jobs in the years to come.

Nick Richards, Silo D, Silvertown

A few monumental buildings, such as Millennium Mills and Silo D, survive among the rubble, and will be restored. On our last visit, Millennium Mills was out of bounds because asbestos removal was underway. This time we were allowed inside, travelling up in the hoist, walking through its vast empty structure, and then out on to the 11th-floor roof overlooking the city.

Isabel Carmona, Millennium Mills (left) and Silo D (centre)

From the blustery rooftop, there were great view across towards the towers of the financial district, the Thames Barrier, the O2 Arena, City Airport, and the unspectacular conurbation of the East End stretching out to the horizon. In the wasteland below, the flashing lights of police cars and a burning vehicle were surrounded by a camera crew – one of many film units attracted to the gritty city feel of Silvertown.

Simon Privett, from the roof of Millennium Mills, looking west

Adebanji Alade, Millennium Dome from Millennium Mills

Simone Menken, looking west from the rooftop

James Hobbs, looking north from the roof of Millennium Mills

The giant mural on the side of Millennium Mills was created in 2012 by Shepard Fairey, the designer of the Barack Obama Hope poster.

Daniel Lloyd-Morgan, Attention Graffiti

 

Jo Dungey, Millennium Mills

The next 10 to 15 years will see this area change beyond recognition. There is a residential community close to the entrance to the site, but it is currently a quiet area – apart from the planes from the airport and construction traffic. Since our last visit in May last year (read about it here), there has been little outward change. The ground is cleared, and buildings rise in other sites around the periphery, but most of the action has still to arrive in Silvertown.

On the roof of Millennium Mills, from the left: Adebanji Alade, James Hobbs, Jo Dungey, Isabel Carmona, Simon Privett, Simone Menken, Nick Richards and Daniel Lloyd-Morgan.

The site is closed for visits now, but we're planning more in the future. Our thanks to the Silvertown Partnership for inviting us.

Return to Silvertown

Urban Sketchers Exhibition Private View

On Wednesday evening we had a little gathering downstairs at Timberyard Seven Dials to celebrate the opening of our exhibition there. Around 70 people came along to see the work of Adebanji Alade, Lis Watkins, Evelyn Rowland, Olha Pryymak and Nathan Brenville, and to chat to some of London's Urban Sketchers themselves. As well as the five featured artists and their work, we screened 2 short films- one a profile of Adebanji, and the other an animation I made last year about my inspirations for sketching London. We also had a slideshow of sketches by regular Flickr group contributors Francesca Albini, Shih Jhih-Ren, Owen Mathers, and Dawn Painter, and all of the contributors to this blog: Katherine, Barry, Pete, Zhenia, James. Lis also brought in a collection of her sketchbooks to view.

Thanks to everyone who came, and again to Darren for the help in organising it!
There's a nice review of the show here by Inspiring City.

Urban Sketchers Exhibition Private View

Urban Sketchers London Exhibition!

We're very excited to have an exhibition of London urban sketching officially opening tomorrow as part of the launch of the brand new branch of Timberyard coffeeshop.
Work from Lis Watkins, Adebanji Alade, Evelyn Rowland, Olha Pryymak and myself (Nathan Brenville) will be on display from Friday 17th January at Timberyard Seven Dials, 7 Upper St Martin's Lane, Covent Garden, London.
It's open til late, so if you fancy a coffee after work/dinner, pop in and check out some of our sketches!

Evelyn finishes hanging her work

As mentioned in the previous post, to celebrate the opening, we'll be meeting in Timberyard Seven Dials this coming Sunday for coffee and sketching, before working our way around a few other tea and coffee establishments in the local area.

The exhibition will be up for a couple of months. Timberyard will also be hosting a 2nd exhibition of Urban Sketchers London from mid-March onwards featuring a whole new set of artists and artworks!

Please go and see for yourself! Let us know what you think in the comments section or twitter: @UrbSketchLondon

Urban Sketchers London Exhibition!

Oil Sketching at night in London

This year I tried out something really weird, I tried oil sketching at night, I had done this in Bath and done a sketch of Tower Bridge at night with watercolours but I hadn't done them in oils. All these were done on  location with oils on board. The size of the board is 10" x 8". I use a head lamp and I always make sure there is a Street lamp or artificial light from somewhere around before I can make a set up at a particular Scene. It's really great painting at night as the light doesn't change. One has to be a great risk taker with the colours as they sometimes appear different when taken indoors under a different light source.

ROYAL COURT THEATRE AT NIGHT

Royal Court Theatre At Night, Oil on Board, 10" x 8", 2012

Royal Court Theatre At Night-Adebanji at work

Royal Court Theatre At Night-The Scene and the set-up

TRAFALGAR SQUARE DURING THE OLMPICS AT NIGHT

Trafalgar Square at Night during the Olympics, 20" x 8", Oil on Board, 2012

Trafalgar Square at Night during the Olympics-Adebanji at work

Trafalgar Square at Night during the Olympics-The Scene and the set-up

Oil Sketching at night in London

The Statue of Gladstone & Samuel Johnson Statue

Saturdays London Sketchcrawl was a blast! I have never seen so many people all gathered together with one mission-and that is to SKETCH LONDON! It was a sunny day and simply an amazing day to unleash the sketch motions within us! I decided to concentrate on statues because, just walking from Temple Station revealed so many statues. At first site I fell in love with the Statue of Gladstone, so I decided to get that one done first. Then I walked further down and I noticed The Samuel Johnson Statue. This was my final Sketch of the day. For both sketches I sat on sand bags available as I didn't have a folding chair or anything decent to sit on. I have used an A4 Moleskine Sketchbook and used a variety of pencils ranging from: Chunky Graphites, Mechanical Clutch pencils, Oil base Pencils, Rexel Carpenters pencils and graphite pencils to the wonderful Mars Lumograph pencils by Staedtler. I have left the pictures here below which tell more of the story than words can explain.

The Statue of Gladstone Sketch

Adebanji sketching The Statue of Gladstone

The Statue of Gladstone and materials

The Statue of Gladstone Scene

The Samuel Johnson Sketch

Adebanji sketching The Samuel Johnson Statue

The Samuel Johnson Statues with materials

The Samuel Johnson Statue Scene

The Statue of Gladstone & Samuel Johnson Statue

Launch of the Art of Urban Sketching in London

London Urban Sketchers showed their sketchbooks and talked about their favourite materials and methods at Cass Art, Islington on Saturday 19 May. They were busy all afternoon, and the book got an excellent response from shoppers!

Zhenia Vasiliev talks about urban sketching

Adebanji Alade demonstrates his approach to drawing faces

KatherineTyrrell demonstrates coloured pencil technique

James Hobbs talks about  sketching

Launch of the Art of Urban Sketching in London

The Art of Urban Sketching book launch

The Art of Urban Sketching, by Urban Sketchers founder Gabriel Campanario, has its London launch on Saturday 19th May at Cass Art's flagship art materials store in Islington N1.

Six of the London-based Urban Sketchers with work in the book – Adebanji Alade, James Hobbs, Barry Jackson, Olha Pryymak, Katherine Tyrrell and Zhenia Vasiliev – will be present on Saturday 19 May between 12.30pm and 5.30pm, with some of their sketchbooks and drawing materials, and ready to answer questions.

Bonus!  The Art of Urban Sketching will be on sale at a special discounted price of just £12.95 for one day only.  Here's what the Cass art Facebook page says

Get the incredible new book 'The Art of Urban Sketching' for only £12.95 at our launch event in Islington tomorrow! Usually £17.99 this offer is valid for tomorrow only. Drop in to meet the artists featured in the book and get tips and advice on drawing on the go.

Don't know much about Urban Sketching? Look here.

Wondering how to get to Cass Art?

Here's a link to Cass Art Islington, 66-67 Colebrooke Row, London N1 8AB Click the link for a map of where this flagship art store is located.

• Nearest Tube station: Highbury Islington
• Nearest Train Station: Essex Road (North London Line)
• Buses: Put "Colebrooke Row Borough of Islington, N1" into the TfL bus maps and it will identify all the buses that run near to Cass Arts. The click the number of the bus to see the route and the bus stops.

These are the links to:

• the Transport for London map of the Planned weekend Tube closures for the weekend 19/20 May 2012. This is the link to the Transport for London pdf file which shows the service disruptions this weekend.
• Use the Journey Planner on the TfL website to work out the best route to the store on Saturday afternoon.

We look forward to meeting you there.

The Art of Urban Sketching book launch

The Trafalgar Square Olympic Clock

The Sketch of The Trafalgar Square Olympic Clock


Yesterday I went to Mall Galleries for the ROI Annual General Meeting and also used the opportunity to view the Lynn Stainer Painters Exhibition. While on my way back to Charing Cross Station I decided to stop and sketch the Official Countdown Timer for The Olympics at Trafalgar Square.



Sketching in progress


I sketched it while it was 116 days to go, I hope to sketch it again when it's only a day or 2 to go, if I am chanced. I sketched this in my A4 Moleskin Sketchbook with a 2B Chunky graphite stick, a 2H pencil and a 0.7 mechanical clutch pencil.



Snap shot of the Scene


For more of my sketches, you can visit my blog

The Trafalgar Square Olympic Clock

Tower Bridge Nocturne and Sketches on the train

Tower Bridge at night always has a romantic feel for me, my wife and I frequented the place while courting and it always brings back pleasant memories. This sketch was completed all on site with watercolour, gouache, Tom Bow Wash pens, coloured pencils and a Black Bic ball point pen.




I also traveled to London Bridge on Southeastern trains and did 2 pages of sketches of commuters. I particularly enjoyed sketching the guy with the hat on the left, the lighting in the train helped to "sculpt" his features a bit more clearly.




The next set of sketches are all unfinished because the commuters all got off before I could complete a single face, but I like the feeling of having several unfinished faces on one page spread.

Tower Bridge Nocturne and Sketches on the train

Meet the correspondents: Adebanji Alade

My hands start shaking, I can't keep them still, my eyes have seen a face, an interesting face. One that I cannot afford to miss. I'm on the train, it's packed full of commuters, everyone is staring at me! But I must sketch! It's an addiction, it's a compulsive habit. Something I have developed by wild practice over the years. London Public transport has every face in this world to enliven a sketchbook and once I turn to a plain page in my sketchbook the possibilities are endless. I may catch a beautiful lady putting on make up, I may grab a city workaholic stealing a nap on the 30 minute journey on the Southeastern trains to Canon Street or the faces all around me just to keep my hands busy. This is everything about me when it comes to sketching. My artillery consists of a Bic ball point pen, an A6 Daler Rowney Sketchbook and a number 75 Tom Bow wash pen(light grey).



Me and my son sketching on the tube

Other things fascinate me while I walk on the street- the homeless people carry the greatest weight. They are the real Londoners, they've seen life! They know the city and can tell you everything you need to know. I can't resist recording these people in my sketchbooks, sometimes they are sitting and begging, some have a good job of selling the Big Issue Magazine, some are just asleep on the road side waiting for the wake up call of a Policeman who doesn't like their positioning.....all these wrap up my desire and Inspiration behind sketching!




My Public Transport Sketches

Then comes my love for architecture, I would have been an architect if not an artist. But my God directed me where He wanted me to be after asking Him for guidance way back in 1990 when I first met Christ. Yes, architecture, the play of light on architecture is amazing, I simply love it and I love to include trees and people into my architectural scenes just to have a good contrast of the organic and inorganic.




Architecture-Oil and Pencil

I love using pure graphite, coloured pencils and the wonderful oil base pencil for these and an A4 Moleskine sketchbook.

I also do oil sketches in location too.

This wraps it up for me! I'll be sharing my sketches of London and Londoners with you! I hope you'll enjoy and subscribe to USK London!




Homeless Scenarios


Lest I forget
My website
My main blog about my art and passion for sketching
My blog where I convert the sketches to paintings
also
I'm currently a provisional member of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters
and a member of The Chelsea Art Society

Meet the correspondents: Adebanji Alade