Sunday, 30 October 2016
A little amusement in Woodford
Tuesday, 25 October 2016
Let's draw Vauxhall Saturday 12th November
Drawing by James Hobbs
Saturday 12th November 2016
- 11 am - Start at the front of Vauxhall Train Station.
- 1 pm - Meet by the Secret Intelligence Service building (MI6 building: photo below), on the riverside walk. *If wet, meet in Starbucks by Vauxhall station.
- 3.30 pm - Finish on the steps of Tate Britain to share sketches and take some photos.*Meet in Café Djanogly, inside Tate Britain if wet.
The November Sketchcrawl will be heavy on the
'urban' part of London Urban Sketchers as we visit Vauxhall, with a variety of
sketching inspiration including;
- The Secret Intelligence Service building - made famous in 'Skyfall' and designed by architect Terry Farrell.
- Vauxhall City Farm - something a little different for central London.
- Tate Britain (free admission) - on the north side of the river, across Vauxhall Bridge.
- Vauxhall Bus Station - a striking metal design by Arup Associates.
- Brunswick House - a Georgian mansion set amongst city skyscrapers.
- Railway arches - for anyone who went to the Manchester Symposium, a chance to rekindle the love of railway arches. Also good place to shelter if the weather is wet.
- Views across the Thames and the changing London skyline.
Damien Hirst's Newport Street Gallery is close
by but unfortunately a new exhibition is being installed so it won't be open
but the outside of the building would be interesting to draw.
Meet outside Vauxhall Train Station at 11.00 am
Vauxhall City Farm
Secret Intelligence Service building (MI6 building)
Along the riverbank
The very striking Vauxhall Bus Station
View from Vauxhall to Westminster
Tate Britain
The sketchcrawl will be led by Lis Watkins.
Thursday, 8 September 2016
Let's draw Smithfield: Saturday 15 October 2016
Smithfield – “the
smooth field” – was the site of a livestock market dating from the medieval
era, and of the annual Cloth Fair held around St Bartholomew’s Day. It is
outside the area of the City of London destroyed by the Great Fire of London of
1666, so has some very old buildings, including the oldest church in London.
The nearest Underground
station is Barbican. From Aldersgate, walk along Long Lane and you will
soon see Smithfield Market. We will meet at West Smithfield garden, a small
circular city park in front of the market building.
Summary of the day:
- Meet at 11 am at West Smithfield garden in front of Smithfield Market
- Meet at 1 pm in the same place
- Meet at 3.30 pm either at the West Smithfield garden if dry or the Rising Sun pub on Cloth Fair if wet
Smithfield is an area
of varied history, and rapid change, and offers a great mix of subjects to
draw:
Smithfield Market is a large Victorian building (see top image) completed in
1867 (architect Horace Jones), a wholesale meat market (trading Monday to
Friday). At the southwest end are disused
buildings, formerly a general market, which have been acquired for redevelopment
as a new location for the Museum
of London
St Bartholomew’s Hospital has stood on this site since 1123, and some of the existing buildings date from the eighteenth century. The hospital complex includes St Bartholomew the Less church (unlikely to be open), and a courtyard with a fountain and plenty of seats. The hospital’s Henry Vlll Gate is on West Smithfield .
Memorials: Smithfield
was for centuries a site of execution.
Memorials alongside the hospital include one to William Wallace,
Scottish leader executed in 1305
St Bartholomew the Great church: the oldest church in London , interesting interior and exterior, admission
charge, open 10.30 am to 4 pm
The Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court,
down Giltspur Street
Postman’s Park and St Botolph Aldersgate, down Little Britain. The park includes G. F. Watts’ Memorial to
Heroic Self-Sacrifice
The Museum of London on the junction of
Aldersgate and London Wall, free admission, open 10 am to 6 pm
I have listed quite a
few options as the impact of building work in the area is unpredictable.
Wet weather options include the interior of St
Bartholomew the Great, interiors of pubs and cafes, and the Museum of London
Facilities: Old pubs are characteristic of the area, although not all open on
Saturday. The Rising Sun, 38 Cloth Fair,
the Old Red Cow, 71 Long Lane, the Fox and Anchor, 115 Charterhouse, should be
open, also Carluccio café on West Smithfield and cafes near the tube station
and the Museum of
London
This day is organised by Jo Dungey.
Saturday, 3 September 2016
Drawing Little Venice: Saturday 17 September
We are meeting at Little Venice in west London for our next sketchcrawl on Saturday 17 September. The plan is to meet at Rembrandt Gardens, right next to the canal, at 11am, and again at 1pm. It's a short walk from Warwick Avenue tube station (Bakerloo line) or a longer one from Paddington tube station (Bakerloo, Circle, District, Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City). There's a map below.
The area is a quiet, affluent place where the Grand Union and Regent's canals meet, with quiet back streets and occasional passing narrowboats. The more modern Paddington Central development, close to the Westway flyovers, is nearby along the canal.
Meet at 11am, and again at 1pm, at Rembrandt Gardens, where Warwick Avenue crosses over the canal, and overlooks the basin. There are public toilets here.
There is a variety of pubs and cafes around Little Venice, although not too cheap. This is the Warwick Castle pub, easily overlooked down Warwick Place, which looks promising.
There are a variety of subjects from the traditionally leafy, such as these...
... to the more modern developments around Paddington close by.
We will finish at the Shelton Square amphitheatre, which is just along the canal towards Paddington, just past the flyovers. There is a variety of cafes and bars around here.
There aren't a huge number of wet-weather options around Little Venice, apart from drawing in Paddington station or from cafes and bars around. Let's hope it's dry, or even sunny.
Tuesday, 23 August 2016
Greenwich
Despite
the very unpromising weather early in the day, the skies cleared on Saturday for
the August sketchcrawl in Greenwich, with a great turnout, a mix of familiar
faces along with some international visitors from Australia, Barcelona and New
Zealand.
Below are just few snaps of sketchbook drawings from the day. Apologies for the names that aren't credited, if you recognise your drawing, please let us know in the comment box and we'll remedy it as soon as possible.
Sue
Paul
The Cutty Sark proved a popular subject throughout the day.
Daniel
Great
views across the Thames, from the shore or up high near the Observatory.
Alice
If
you are on Flickr, you can apply to join the London Urban Sketchers Flickr page
or those on Facebook can join the London Urban Sketchers Facebook page.
If you are on Twitter or Instagram, use the hashtag #urbansketchers for your
work to get seen and shared by others.
London
Urban Sketchers Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/318585898339169/
Thank
you to everybody who came along and hope to see you all at the September outing
to Little Venice!
Monday, 22 August 2016
Good old fashioned fun
Down by the Cutty Sark, this looked fantastic against the cloudy sky and the tower blocks on the other side of the river. Not that I managed to get the watercolours out to record it's lovely paint work of course. No, I was too busy getting the all metal supports in.
Thursday, 18 August 2016
Sketching Wren's London - again!
On Sunday July 24, a whole lot of us gathered outside St.Paul's Cathedral, and then dispersed and sketched Christopher Wren's London. It's the second Wren-themed sketchcrawl in the City I have put on, and as before, I created special handouts which included a hand-drawn map showing all of the Wren churches (and other buildings) within the City boundaries. There are a couple of Wren's City churches not showing, only because I didn't stretch the map far enough north, west, or east, and of course it shows none that are outside the Square Mile; perhaps we'll sketch all of those next time!Here is the map:
We started at 10:30am outside St. Paul's, and I gave a little historical introduction talking about London leading up to 1666, starting with the beheading of Charles I, which many English people believed had brought a curse upon them, manifesting in the year of the beast, 1666. That was the year of the Great Fire of London; I won't tell the whole story here, you had to be there. We were joined by a good number of people from around the world who were in England for the Manchester Symposium. It was very international - in addition to the UK and the US, we had sketchers from Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy, France, Pakistan, Luxembourg, China, This was day two of London's Urban Sketching pre-Symposium, and it was a little cooler, and a lot calmer than the previous day in Trafalgar Square. I do like the un-crowded City on a weekend.
In 2014, I sketched seven Wren buildings in one day, and my ambition was to sketch more. However, you sketch what you can sketch, and I'm pleased to say I at least matched my previous haul. I did use more pencil while sketching than usual, something I am doing more. First off though I sketched the Temple Bar gateway in pen. This was originally down at Fleet Street at the entrance to the City but removed many decades ago, only to sit languishing in Theobolds Park near Cheshunt. It was restored and placed next to St. Paul's just over a decade ago, forming the entrance to Paternoster Square. It was from that still-shining-new plaza that I sketched St. Paul's itself. I have always struggled with the great domed cathedral from this angle but that's ok, you have to draw St. Paul's.
Next up, a couple of neighbours to the great domed masterpiece. First of all, St. Augustine's Watling Street, largely destroyed in the Blitz. I sketched this in pencil from the gardens of St. Paul's churchyard while talking to my old friend from high school, Joan Uloth (check out her Instagram) and Beliza Mendes from Luxembourg. Then I sketched St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, which is visible across the
street (now that the building that was in the way has been demolished,
that is).
This next one was sketched across a busy street, St. Benet's Paul's Wharf, the church where they hold the sermons in Welsh.
I was fcuing more on the south side of the City, so next in line was St. James Garlickhythe (haunted by "Jimmy Garlick". I sketched from an angle and with the very loud and quite chaotic bells ringing, adding the old paint splatter thing because the great Tia Boon Sim from Singapore was on the sketchcrawl and I've always been inspired by her paint splashes. It seemed appropriate given the noise of the bells!
My final sketch was of the neighbour to St. James, which is St. Michael Paternoster Royal. What I loved about this crawl was that wherever I went there would always be at least one or two other sketchers there busy plugging away. This by the way is the church where legendary (but historically very real) Mayor Dick Whittington (he of the cat and the pantomime) was buried. Nobody knows where his grave is now though, but while Wren's tomb says "Look Around You" I presume Whittington's tomb says "Look Behind You".
That is a panto reference if you don't know. In the end, we did seek out Wren's Monument, which is actually a massive column commemorating the Great Fire. Of the 60 or so people that made it to the finishing line (quite a few did not; I checked the number of maps given out and I think we had around 80 participants total), we got together and I read out the names of each Wren building, asking sketchers to raise hands if they had sketched it. And we sketched ALL OF THEM. Every single one! Great job, London sketchers!!!
See you next time!
by Pete Scully
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