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

The River Thames at Kew in March

Earlier this month - in the first spell of good weather - we went down to Kew Gardens twice in one week.  We also left the gardens via the Brentford Gate and walked on the towpath next to the River Thames wile the tide was out.

I sketched this view sat nearly opposite Syon House.  I started it on the Monday and finished it on the Thursday.  It has the soft hazy colours of a warm day which started with fog!

The Thames at Kew - looking towards Richmond 12 and 15 March 2012
pen and ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook, 11" x 16"
© Katherine Tyrrell - all rights reserved

You can read more about the place and my visit here on my sketchbook blog - The Thames at Kew - in March sunshine

The River Thames at Kew in March

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

Meet the correspondents: Zhenia Vasiliev

For me, both a graphic designer and illustrator, drawing is rather a process of thinking rather producing a finished piece. I love to think about how things look like, and drawing helps me with this, so sketching is a big part of my profession.

Regrettably, my full-time work schedule does not allow me to do full-scale sketching sessions too often, so most of the time I do a sketch on the go, whenever I am - so any place around London will suit me as a sketcher. I love working on along Regents canal, sketching birds, trees and people in the parks, or make a quick street scene from a cafe window, especially when it's cold outside.

I love trying all of the art materials and exploring how different materials work together in a sketch. When I go out of the house, I just grab something that lies on my work table - a bunch of colour pencils, a waterbrush, a watercolour box or just a ballpoint pen. All the materials are worth exploring and give a new dimension to my work.

Visit my blog and check out my flickr.

Marble Arch, waterbrush, india ink

Traffic jam, colour pencils, from an upper deck of a double decker bus.

Upper street sketch, North London, watercolour

Meet the correspondents: Zhenia Vasiliev

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: Barry Jackson (Professor Shorthair)

I love drawing, and making pictures. I've been drawing for more years than I can count, but it's only in the last few years that I feel like I'm making some slow progress. Towards what? I'm not sure. Perhaps my goal is just not to be too bad.

Much of the time my interest is focussed on urban themes, and I draw on location in an urban space. A few years ago I found the Urban Sketchers blog, and this provided an opportunity to share some of these works with an audience that has a similar set of interests. It's been a real stimulus for me, to see such a variety of urban drawing from all over the world.

Drawing at Alexandra Palace

Sometimes I draw when I'm traveling. Unlike many Urban Sketcher members though, I find that travel and drawing don't complement each other well. The kind of drawings I like to do work best when I can spend time on them, without wondering what I might be missing around the next corner.

Drawing places that mean something to me is what I most enjoy, and much of my work therefore is focussed on London, where I was born and brought up. Hence I was delighted to be invited to be a correspondent for the new London-based blog.

St Anne's Limehouse, charcoal,  50x60cm

I often sketch, in a sketchbook, wherever I happen to be - which means cafe and pub sketches fill a lot of pages in my books! But if I'm out specifically to draw then I'll have a particular location or theme in mind

I don't have any  favourite places in London that I repeatedly draw, although I do find myself returning beside the river or around the Regent's Canal  quite frequently.  I also don't have any favourite subjects or themes - these continue to change and evolve - sometimes it's spaces, or the movement of people, or solitary trees, or water, or as in this drawing, particular buildings. (This is St Anne's church in Limehouse)



 

St Paul's from Surrey side, graphite 29x84cm

If I'm going out to draw I'll be carrying a whole range of kit with me, because I like to play with media and techniques. The drawings will usually be bigger than sketchbook size, occasionally ending up very large. (The St Paul's drawing on the right is made up of 4 sketchbook pages)


Occasionally I have periods of trying to use colour, but on the whole I find it difficult to make satisfactory drawings when I'm using colour. At the moment I love using ink, particulary Quink, and carbon pencil, as in this drawing below of a spectacualr weeping ash tree in Rosemary Gardens, Islington

Weeping ash, ink + carbon pencil, 30x40cm

Meet the correspondents: Barry Jackson (Professor Shorthair)

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