Photos from London Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl

You can see photos from the 1st Sketchcrawl held by Urban Sketchers London on a very hot and sunny day on Saturday on Photos from the 1st "Let's Draw London" Sketchcrawl on the Urban Sketchers London blog.

I'll be posting individual images of my sketches from the day later - I scaled down on the complexity of architectural challenges as I went through the day! (Have you ever seen the architecture of the Royal Courts of Justice!)

Below you can what they looked like laid on the ground at the end of the day

My sketches of:
(top) Dr Johnson's House and Hodge the cat in Gough Square pen and ink
(Bottom left) Fleet Street and the Royal Courts of Justice pen and ink and coloured pencils
(bottom right) Temple Church pencil and coloured pencils

"Let's Draw London" Sketchcrawl is TODAY 26th May 2012

We have delayed the Urban Sketchers London first sketchcrawl until Pete Scully - our North London blogger pal who now lives in California could join us.

Today we'll be sketching the area around Temple and Fleet Street.  Which means I'll be at Temple Underground station at 10:30am this morning!  Sketches and report back later.  You can read more about the Sketchcrawl in Reminder: Let's Draw London Sketchcrawl this Saturday on our Urban Sketchers blog.

PS Here's some photos by Barry of our Book Launch as Cass Art last Saturday - Launch of the Art of Urban Sketching in London

London Launch of The Art of Urban Sketching - Cass Arts Islington

You are invited to the London Launch of The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World which contains work by London based correspondents.

'll be with my fellow founder members of Urban Sketchers London at Cass Arts Islington on the afternoon of Saturday 19th May for an event to celebrate the launch.

Cass Arts Islington

WHAT:  An afternoon of demonstrations of how we sketch and what we use for sketching.  We'll also be encouraging you to sketch and answering your questions.  Cass Arts has created a Facebook event page for the book launch - see The Art of Urban Sketching Book Launch

WHO: The founder members of London Urban Sketchers are listed below with the demonstrator for each timeslot listed first

• 12.30 Zhenia Vasiliev Zhenia Vasiliev and me 
• 1.30 Adebanji Alade Adebanji Alade, My Art My Passion for Sketching and Zhenia
• 2.30 myself - Katherine Tyrrell Travels with a Sketchbook and Adebanji
• 3.30 Olha Pryymak Olha Pryymak and James
• 4.30 James Hobbs Hobbs blog and Barry
• Barry Jackson Prof Shorthair will be around all afternoon

WHEN: Saturday 19th May 2012 - 12.30pm - 5.30pm

WHERE:  Cass Art Islington, 66-67 Colebrooke Row, London N1 8AB Click the link for a map of where this flagship art store is located.

• Nearest Tube station:  Highbury Islington
• Nearest Train Station:  Essex Road (North London Line)
• Buses: Put "Colebrooke Row Borough of Islington, N1" into the TfL bus maps and it will identify all the buses that run near to Cass Arts.  The click the number of the bus to see the route and the bus stops. I'll be on the 205!
• These are the links to:
  
  • the Transport for London map of the Planned weekend Tube closures for the weekend 19/20 May 2012.  This is the link to the Transport for London pdf file which shows the service disruptions this weekend.
  • Use the Journey Planner on the TfL website to work out the best route to the store on Saturday afternoon.

A very popular book!

We intended to have this launch to coincide with the launch of Urban Sketchers London on 1st March - but then realised that we'd be trying to have a book launch with no books.  The Art of Urban Sketching had proved to be so popular that it was almost impossuble to get hold of a copy by March!

A second reprint had to be ordered within six weeks of it going on sale - and we've had to wait for the new books to arrive!

Don't live near London?

If you don't live near London you can keep an eye on other Urban Sketchers events in your part of the world by following Drawing Attention on the main Urban Sketchers blog

St James Park - after the rain comes the sun

Afternoon in St James Park 30th April 2012
pen and sepia ink in small Moleskine Sketchbook, 8" x 10"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

People who don't live in the UK often comments that we talk about the weather all the time.  That's because unlike all those souls who live on massive tectonic plates where the weather tends to stick around for a long time - the UK is an island and a maritime nation and our weather is very much influenced by what's happening to the sea.  Thus the weather can change season from day to day and hour to hour.

However April 2012 was a bit worse than most months.  "Depressing" would be a good description, especially after the wonderful summer weather we had in March.  It rained a lot.  However we still have the hosepipe ban in force as it hasn't rained enough in the last two years.  April reminded us of what rain is like....

April 2012 was the coldest April since 1989, the dullest since 1998 and the wettest since 2000. More remarkably, it was around 1C colder than March, a rare, but not unprecedented occurrence.
The Guardian - The weather in April

Which is why, last Monday afternoon, when I got to sit in the sunshine and sketch in St James Park it felt wonderful!

I was so busy last week I didn't have a chance to post the sketch I did until now - so here it is.  No coloured pencils, just pen and ink in a small Moleskine sketchbook as that was all I had with me.

There are lots of places in London where you can draw people passing by - and the cafe in St James Park - Inn the Park - is one of them.