Sketching in the RI Exhibition at the Mall Galleries

I went to the Private View of the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours this week at the Mall Galleries. Looking back at past blog posts about their exhibitions reminded me to look back in my London sketch folder at sketches done IN their exhibitions in the past - and you can find some of these below.

See my blog review of this year - 205th Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour and you'll find lots of subject matter for sketching while the exhibition is on!

As usual, all sketches below start in pen and ink in a Moleskine sketchbook and then have coloured pencils added - except for the ones at the end which are in pencil.

See RI Exhibition at the Mall Galleries (2010)
This sketch appears on page 103 of my book Sketching 365 
available via a link in the side column or from all good art bookshops
(which includes the Mall Galleries!)

Some marvellous and colourful paintings by Bob Rudd of Iona and various other islands in the Hebrides feature on the end wall.

see The Private View (199th RI Exhibition) (in 2011)

My method of sketching is simple - find a seat and start drawing! The composition evolves as I draw. People come and go and the trick is to get good at spotting the ones who look like they're going to stick around in the same spot for a little bit!

See RI 2015 Private View - and sketchbooks on show

There's a lot of RI member artists bringing in their sketchbooks to the exhibition as part of the events programme (see the list below) and as you can imagine a lot of them will be sketching using watercolour.

and finally....

Below are two sketches from this review of the exhibition Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Annual Exhibition 2008 and the sketch is of Bill Toop RI (who sadly died last year) demonstrating how to paint in watercolours and a little boy called Thomas who was watching him intently.

NOTE: This blog has been on a hiatus for various reasons - not least being the very serious problems I had in mobilising last year due to the onset of arthritis and a torn meniscus in my knee. This has meant I now cut out carrying anything unnecessary. I had trouble getting my coat on and off at one point never mind a back pack!! I'll be trying to get back to sketching and blogging again in the future and in the meantime may well post more sketches from the past that haven't seen the light of day on this blog before!