Bus Stop H

Not the most inspiring title I know but it is true. After two visits to Waitrose in South Woodford, I had justified two large blue milk lattes and a chocolate torsade. This is the little group of higgledy piggledy buildings on view from the new 'bar' area by the check outs. Much nicer to be able to set up shop, sitting down.

Bus Stop H

Charing Cross Road Bookshops

 When I am in London I like to peruse the bookshops on Charing Cross Road which is renowned for its specialist antiquarian and secondhand bookshops.

I love the low lit, dusty, damp, and mysterious isles of cramped books full of hidden stories and history beckoning to be looked at. The thought of finding something serendipitous amongst the shelves fill me with excitement.

There is a best selling book named after the street called “84 Charing Cross Road”, a 1970 book by Helene Hanff , about a twenty year correspondence between Frank Doel chief Buyer of Marks & Co and her.

 I thought I would spend time sketching some of the bookshops that are still surviving. Bookshops especially second hand ones seem to be in decline and driven out of business by the Internet and Ebooks. 

I am building quite a collection of shop front illustrations. I am inspired by the Typefaces and signage on buildings. I have used A Lamy Safari fountain pen to do the pen work on situ and then digitally coloured the sketches using Photoshop.

Charing Cross Road Bookshops

Let's Draw Hampstead - 13th June 2015

Hampstead Heath, by Nathan B

WHERE:  Hampstead village and heath

WHEN:    Saturday 13th June 2015

START:    11:00am at the alleyway in Flask Walk, near Hampstead Tube

LUNCH:   1:30pm at The Buttery Café, Hampstead Museum - we can grab some food, share our sketches, and snap a group photo

END:        3:30pm - back at the flat traffic island between Flask Walk and Well Walk, opposite Hampstead Museum - to have a look at more sketches and take any more photos, with the option of retiring to the nearby Flask pub, or a cup of tea at the Buttery café!

TRAVEL: Hampstead Tube Station (Northern Line, Edgware branch)

MAP: 

• Hampstead and surrounding area on Google Maps (with above locations marked)
• City of London Map of Hampstead Heath

Organiser: Nathan Brenville (please leave any queries as comments on this post or on the Facebook Event Page)

John Constable's House, Well Walk, by Katherine Tyrrell

Click on  map above to see a specially created map with the timings and locations of the sketchcrawl as well as other interesting locations - use the menu to click on each point to find out more information. Thanks to Katherine for doing the map.

For those of you interested in sketching on the heath itself, there's also a detailed map here of points of interest.

If you do want to draw on the heath, it's worth noting that it's pretty big to say the least (!) so you may not want to trek all the way back to meet at lunchtime at the museum - this is perfectly fine, we can always catch up at the end at 3.30 instead.

Additionally, if you don't want to do a lot of walking, it may be best to choose either Hampsead village OR Hampstead Heath rather than attempting both, but it's up to you!

Hopefully June means that it's a fairly safe bet that the weather will be fine, but in England who knows! Hampstead Heath is fairly lacking in shelter, other than trees!

As always, it's free to join, you just need to bring your own sketching materials... and perhaps an umbrella and/or suncream.

Hope to see you all soon!

Boating Pond, Hampstead Heath, by Katherine Tyrrell

Let's Draw Hampstead - 13th June 2015

Fairy nice!

It’s not just the Chelsea Flower Show that has all the best greenery at the moment.  This beautiful walled garden is a few minutes walk from the centre of Croydon in Park Hill Park and is maintained by volunteers from the local community.  

The ‘castle’ you can see in the background is actually a water tower built during the 19^th century to serve the large increase in the town’s population.

As the population expands in the 21^st century too, there are more new shoots sprouting up near the station on Cherry Orchard Road in the form of new blocks of flats.  Or as they always seem to be known these days - luxury apartments.

Park Hill Park is hosting a ‘Flower Fairies Festival’ this summer celebrating the work of artist Cicely Mary Barker who created the original books and grew up in the Croydon area.  More details at http://www.croydonheritagefestival.co.uk/Calendar/2203/Families%20and%20Children/Flower-Fairies-Festival

Fairy nice!

Jerwood Drawing Prize 2015 - Call for Entries

If you like drawing you may be interested in the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2015.

• This is the poster for their call for entries. 
• There is a First Prize of £8,000, a Second Prize of £5,000 and two Student Awards of £2,000 each. 
• Entry is online. You can submit three entries - and fees are discounted for students. 
• Deadline for entries is 5pm on 26 June 2015
• Entry is open to all artists resident in the UK.

Further information can be found:

• on the Parker Harris website (the organisers) for The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2015
• in this blog post commentary Jerwood Drawing Prize: Call for Entries by Katherine Tyrrell, one of the founders of Urban Sketchers London. She highlights how they define drawing for the purposes of this competition.

Jerwood Drawing Prize 2015 - Call for Entries

Palm Houses and Pagodas on a sunny sketching day at Kew Gardens

Sketches and London Urban Sketchers at the end of the day 
on the steps outside the Palm House at Kew Gardens
Right click this to see an even larger version in the lightbox

A great time was had by all at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew on Saturday. We had blue skies and sunshine from the start and it gradually warmed up to the point where serious consideration was given to sun screen!

The general consensus was Kew Gardens was a really great place to sketch and very different from the normal places we go for urban sketching.  The buildings are a bit different for starters plus there's a few more trees than usual!

It was also fabulous to welcome people who had travelled a long distance to be at our sketchcrawl to draw Kew Gardens. We had people from Northamptonshire, Cambridge and Eastbourne - as well as a chap who hails from Iceland and a lady who got to Kew from Portland Oregon via Barcelona!

Here's some photos of the day - of sketches and sketchers - and an awful lot of Palm Houses and Pagodas!

Sketches and London Urban Sketchers at lunchtime
on the terrace outsideThe Orangery at Kew Gardens
Right click this to see an even larger version in the Lightbox

These are some of the morning's sketches

Group of morning sketches at lunchtime outside the Orangery
Right click this to see an even larger version in the lightbox

These are the sketches of the Pagodas from the morning

Sketches of the Pagoda at Kew Gardens

These are sketches of the Palm House

Sketches of the Palm House and other glass houses

This was the group at lunchtime.  Not everybody was here because it can take a long time walking from one place to another Kew Gardens!

These are the group sketches at the end

Sketches outside the Palm House at the end of the day.

....and you can see the group at the end of the day - in front of the Palm House - in the first image of this post.

It was great to introduce Kew Gardens to people for whom this was the first visit - and I think Kew Gardens had some new 'Friends' by the end of the day.

Do please upload your sketches to:

• the London Urban Sketchers Facebook Group
• the Group Pool for London Urban Sketchers. If you're not yet a member you need to upload your sketches to your own Flickr account before applying for membership.

and finally......

Sangeeta got retweeted by Kew Gardens!  Now that's the power of Twitter!

MT @sangeeta771: @kewgardens Urban Sketchcrawl @UrbSketchLondon pic.twitter.com/zep0NRiglt

— Kew Gardens (@kewgardens) May 18, 2015

Next Month - June 2015 - we're in Hampstead

Keep an eye on the blog - this is the Sketchcrawl Page and the link to the blog post about it will be announced in the note at the top of the right hand column when the date is announced.

Palm Houses and Pagodas on a sunny sketching day at Kew Gardens

REMINDER: Let's Draw Kew Gardens tomorrow!

The weather looks as if it's set fair for our expendition to sketch Kew Gardens tomorrow. You can read about all the details in Let's Draw Kew Gardens - SATURDAY 16th MAY 2015

Key features of Kew Gardens on a Google Map - click to see a larger version

Let's Draw Kew Gardens - Saturday 16th May 2015 

Let's Draw Kew Gardens - Saturday 16th May 2015

Here's the summary

• Venue: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in south west London
• Date: Saturday 16th May 2015 (The gardens are open from 10am if you want to get there early and close at 6.30pm if you want to stay late)
• Entrance Fee: Please make a particular note that this venue is NOT free and there is a charge of£15 per adult (£14 if purchased online) and Free if you are a Friend.
• Start: 11:00am at the Terrace outside the Victoria Plaza café next to the Entrance (just to the right of the ticket gate) - introduction to those new to urban sketching and tips re. Kew Gardens
• Lunch: 1:30pm at The Orangery - share our sketches, group photo - and time for lunch. The Orangery has hot and cold food from Peyton & Byrne and tables and chairs to sit and eat at.  You can also buy sandwiches from Tesco on the left as you walk out of Kew Station.
• End: 3:30pm - in front of the Palm House (Lake side) - share our sketches + another group photo to add to the collection!
• Travel: Kew Gardens Station
• Underground: District Line to Richmond - There appear to be no problems with the District Line this weekend. For other lines see the map below
• North London Line to Richmond. 
• Map: 
• Kew Gardens Maps and Gates (download for free) 
• Download the map of Kew Gardens
• PLUS I've identified all the key features on a Google Map and annotated it for this Sketchcrawl. (see top image)

According to BBC Weather, the weather is due to be light cloud in the morning (15C) then sun from 3pm (17C) - so hopefully no rain.

Tweet your sketches tomorrow using the hashtag #USKLondon and/or #sketching.

Follow live tweets from Kew Gardens on https://twitter.com/UrbSketchLondon

REMINDER: Let's Draw Kew Gardens tomorrow!