London's Urban Sketchers exhibit at Foyles bookshop

James Hobbs, Foyles, Charing Cross Road

Have you bought a copy of The Art of Urban Sketching by Gabriel Campanario yet?

Urban Sketchers London are delighted to be publicising this very popular book and exhibiting their work by participating in Foyles Bookshop's Sketching the City summer season of exhibitions about sketching.

Works by London-based urban sketchers that are included in The Art of Urban Sketching will be on display at the third-floor gallery in Foyles flagship bookshop at 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London from next Monday.

The show also includes:

• excerpts and drawings reproduced from the book by other urban sketchers from around the world
• plus other framed works by London-based Nathan Brenville, James Hobbs, Barry Jackson, Olha Pryymak, Katherine Tyrrell and Zhenia Vasiliev. 

The Art of Urban Sketching Exhibition is for one week from Monday 16 July to Sunday 22 July 2012. For more details about the gallery's opening hours and how to get to Foyles, check its website.

The book is on sale in the shop and at the exhibition.

Follow London's Urban Sketchers on Twitter: @urbsketchlondon

Further details about the events in Foyles Sketching in the City season, which continues until 26 August.

London's Urban Sketchers exhibit at Foyles bookshop

Playing, Watching, and Drawing Tennis

Every year for a few brief weeks, tennis fever grips the nation as we proudly watch our British players try and inevitably fail to get to the final of Wimbledon. But whaddya know - THIS YEAR HE'S GONE AND DONE IT!!! Andy Murray is through to the final, and win or lose, he's achieved something special. As a true part-time tennis fan, I've picked up a racquet myself and gone out on my local courts, trying to emulate our British number one. My closest place to play is Hilly Fields, which is also a great place to sketch, there are some fantastic panoramas of surrounding London and Kent, and I'll be returning there soon when there's some good weather for more drawing.

I like the building in the background, which is actually a college.

I used to play tennis regularly, but its been a couple of years now since my last game. Living in London though, you can't beat the real thing, and Wimbledon is only 40 minutes away from me by tube/train. On Wednesday I went down there to try and see some of the men's quarter finals. I got to see Roger Federer warming up on an outside court, but the real attraction was Andy Murray's match.

To get in to Centre Court, unless you've booked way in advance, then you need to queue up for resales. Anyone who leaves early hands in their ticket, and they're then resold cheaply, with profits going to charity.

The sun sticker was a bit optimistic

We arrived at 10am, and were queuing all day. It was such a long wait that I felt I could attempt an ambitious drawing- the view from just above 'Henman Hill', of Centre Court and surrounding courts, with Wimbledon town in the background. I had a good feeling about this sketch, but unfortunately I didn't reckon on a) frequent bouts of pouring rain and b) I wasn't supposed to leave the resale queue for longer than 15 minutes at a time, so I didn't get to finish, which I was annoyed about.

 

But finally, at 5pm, we got tickets in time for the end of the 2nd set of Murray's quarter final, right at the turning point of the match. The atmosphere was electric, unlike anything I've been to before.

taken during a break, but the match itself was packed full

It was a very tense match, and it was hard to concentrate on drawing when the game was so absorbing, but I managed pretty well, doing the majority in between points and during a rain break. I finished the colour off at home.

This was my third time visiting Wimbledon, but the first on Centre Court, and it was definitely worth the queuing.

I may even go back down on Sunday just to sit on Henman Hill and watch the final, but I'm not sure I'll have the steadiness of nerves for more drawing - I'll be too busy shouting "Come on Andy!"

Playing, Watching, and Drawing Tennis

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

a South Bank Saturday stroll

Here are some happy campers. A few more sketches from my recent visit to London. People came from all over the UK to wait by the Thames for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee River Pageant earlier this month, many bedding down on the banks of the river to be sure of seeing the flotilla pass by in the pouring rain. Long to rain over us, eh! Well it wasn't raining on the day before, when I strolled down the South Bank sketching, soaking in the excitement. I love a party with a happy atmosphere, as someone once said.

 

It was windy though, and that bunting on Southwark Bridge was taking a battering. I was fine, sheltered away from the breezes, but I couldn't block out the sound of a rather less-than-stellar street band playing in the tunnel behind me. I didn't want to put on my iPod headphones though, because it was nice to have little conversations with people as they passed.

  

This charming house is right next to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, and after sketching I was surprised to learn that this is where London's great architect Sir Christopher Wren lived during the construction of St.Paul's!! Convenient location (except there was no Millennium Bridge in those days, so he probably took a ferry, or just sloshed over the muddy river in his boots).

And here is the Anchor, an old pub on Bankside, decked out for the Queen's big party. I sat for about an hour and drew this, finishing off much of the brickwork later on. I popped in to have a look around at the interior, but it was pretty busy, full of passing tourists, and so I decided against an interior sketch and went for a grilled halloumi sandwich at Borough Market instead (highly recommended!). I do love to sketch a London pub, on location. Though many are disappearing there are still so many out there, ready for us to draw (and we should, in case they do vanish, or become trendy). One flickr group I enjoy looking at is London Pubs, devoted to photos of pubs around the capital. (If you're interested here is my own Flickr set of pub drawings from London and elsewhere in the world). I would love to do an old London pub-sketch-crawl some time!
 
I am looking forward to seeing some other sketchers' London posts!

by Pete Scully

a South Bank Saturday stroll

on either side of Hungerford Bridge

Hungerford Bridge is so much nicer now than it used to be. Remember when the footbridge was that creaking old rusty attachment to the eastern side of the railway bridge? Crossing it made me feel like Indiana Jones on an old rope bridge. What's more, it was on the side without the nice view of Big Ben. When they tore it down and built two brand new shiny bridges on either side of the railway bridge, I couldn't have been more thrilled, and I still am. Officially they are the Golden Jubilee bridges, though nobody I know calls them that. One day I will even draw them, but in the meantime here are my sketches of the amazing views they offer. Above, after a morning of shopping culminating in a very confused Pete struggling to survive at Piccadilly Circus (it's like Piccadilly Circus down there) I ended up at the calm of the river. The Thames has always been my place of escape, ever since I was a kid I would come to the South Bank, do some drawing. It looked quite different then. There were a lot more homeless people, living under the bridges. The whole south bank of the river has been transformed in my lifetime, and keeps on changing. Even Big Ben will probably be renamed; well, Big Ben's just the bell, but the tower people often call Big Ben is really called the Clock Tower, and they said recently they may change it to Elizabeth Tower to mark the Queen's diamond jubilee; people will still call if Big Ben. That's ok. Just over a decade ago it wasn't possible to sketch this view from this spot, and now it is. I sat out there, a bright but windy May afternoon, and took advantage.

The London skyline continues to change as well. After completing my sketch of Westminster (and Lambeth), I popped around to the eastern footbridge and did a double page spread in the other direction. It was pretty windy, and I stood for most of the sketch (sitting down you get a barrier blocking the view). I started in the middle, at St.Paul's, the constant. Waterloo Bridge in the middle, that was built by Giles Gilbert Scott (who gave us the red phone box - the arched roof is the same curve as the arches on the bridge), and Cleopatra's Needle, on the Victoria embankment to the right, centuries older than Cleopatra herself. In the City you can see the NatWest Tower - sorry, it's called Tower 42 now (but still looks like the NatWest Bank symbol from above) - and of course the Gherkin (or '30 St.Mary Axe' as it's really called). Buildings keep going up. Coming soon will be the Pinnacle, a building in the City that twists and turns and blocks the view. The biggest and brightest and sharpest of them all is the Shard, that large 1984-ish triangle in the right hand of the panorama.
This whole panorama, a two-page Moleskine spread, took me a couple of hours, what with squinting to observe, waiting for people to pass by, and fighting the winds. I wonder what it will look like the next time I come to sketch this skyline?

by Pete Scully

on either side of Hungerford Bridge

Victoria Park before the games

 

Crown Estate, Victoria Park, watercolor in 19x19 cm Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook  Trees by St. Agnes Gate, Victoira Park, watercolor in 19x19 cm Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook

Victoria park is ready for the Olympics. I live on the edge of if and have the pleasure using it every day. Sadly it's also the closest big park to the Olympics site and half of it will be roped off by the Olympics activities. It's been daunting to have it all dug up and in construction for the past year and a half but luckily all the improvements are here to stay after the busy summer passes. 

 By the Pavilion cafe, watercolor and Farber-Castell Pitt pen in Seawhile of Brighton sketchbook

Victoria Park before the games

Up the Watling

If you should happen to travel up the Northern Line, up the Edgware branch past Golders Green, you'll come to Burnt Oak, which is where I was born and grew up, where my mother grew up, where my family still lives. This is the 'skyline' of Watling Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Burnt Oak, weather-beaten chimneys crawling up the hill to Burnt Oak Broadway (aka Edgware Road, part of the ancient Roman highway called Watling Street). Burnt Oak it must be said is not a particularly charming part of London. It has changed a great deal over the years, nowhere more so than the shops on Watling Avenue, but these chimney-tops remain epic and unaltered, like a row of ancient statues. There is the odd shop here and there, however, that has survived the changes over the years as if unnoticed by the world - Hassan's clothing, Anthony's Drug Store, Pennywise, and of course my favourite shop Vipins, still run by the same Indian couple of who still remember me as a small red-headed eight-year-old buying felt-tip pens and glitter-glue. I sat in a quiet spot outside the Ming takeaway (another remnant from my youth) and sketched the chimneys, while the daytime passers-by passed me by, sometimes smiling, sometimes talking to me about what it was like round there when they were young. Burnt Oak might not be charming, but there is still charm to be found.

by Pete Scully

Up the Watling