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 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

Still standing: Big Ben

James Hobbs, Clock Tower, Westminster

Big Ben is leaning, it has been announced by surveyors, although at 0.26 degrees (about 8.5 inches at the height of the clock) it will take, they somehow estimate, about 10,000 years to reach the same angle as the tower at Pisa, which is standing at around four degrees.

Despite the tower’s minor tilt, it is apparent to the naked eye. From across Westminster Bridge it leans slightly to the right. For the sake of political balance, from Parliament Square it leans slightly to the left. (There’s no comfortable Liberal Democrat viewpoint, but it seems few want to view anything from that angle anyway.)

The tower’s gradually shift, hardly helped by having the Jubilee tube line running beneath it, isn’t being treated as an emergency. Renovation work isn’t expected to start before 2020. If you’re coming to London for the Olympics, it should still be standing.

More at www.james-hobbs.blogspot.com.

Still standing: Big Ben