16th Worldwide Sketchcrawl - the result

Prime Meridien - Study #1
pencil and coloured pencil in Daler Rowney sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Well! (You now know there's a story coming up....)

I made up my mind late in the day that, for the 16th Worldwide Sketchcrawl, I would sketch the Prime Meridien at various points passing either side of the Thames. So I drove to Greenwich Park and got out of the car and then heard somebody saying to me "You've got a flat tyre".

Just what I needed!

So I had a little think (all the while having people stopping to advise me I'd got a flat tyre!!!) and decided that it looked like a slow puncture to me and that I could go and do at least one sketch while letting the tyre cool down. I would then try pumping it back up and driving home. If it pumped up I'd drive and if it didn't I'd call out Green Flag.

Which is what I did - after first getting "he who must not bored while I sketch" on to standby mode to come and rescue me in case I ground to a bouncing halt anywhere scary like the approach road to the Blackwall Tunnel. Despite my breakdown cover, there's no way I'm staying on a road with speeding traffic any longer than I have to.

As it happens, he wasn't required to don his armour for the dashing knight on a white charger routine and I got home again OK driving carefully at 30mph. Guess who's getting a slow puncture sorted today!

However it did rather effectively kill the sketchcrawl. Although I still like the idea of sketching the Meridien and might try going out on another day and trying again.

What you can see in the sketch at the top is the view from the top of the hill in Greenwich Park, I'm sat to the immediate right of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich and am looking right down the line of the Meridien. This slices straight through the left edge of the Dome which used to be known as "The Dome" (constructed to celebrate the Millenium) and has now been redeveloped as "The O2 Arena" which is home to concerts and rock and pop stars - including the London concert for the comeback tour of the Spice Girls next month and the new Tutankhamum exhibition!

The River Thames and the Isle of Dogs/Canary Wharf are to the left and the autumn trees on the slopes of the hil Greenwich Park fill the bottom half of the drawing.

You can see more sketches of views in and around the River Thames in my London Sketchbook on my website.

Links:

• Sketchcrawl website
• Sketchcrawl Forum for 16th Sketchcrawl
• Wikipedia:
• Prime Meridien (Greenwich Meridien)
  
• Royal Observatory
• Greenwich Park
• The Millenium Dome
  
• The O2
  
• Pastels and Pencils - London Sketchbook
  

International Sketchcrawl - Great Comp Garden, Kent

Great Comp Garden
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencil in Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Minded to produce another sketch for the Gardens in Art project I'm doing on Making A Mark this month, I did a quick sketch of a view of part of the garden at Great Comp in Kent which we visited yesterday. This is late afternoon on a very sunny warm day (which we've had far too few of this summer) and I rather liked the contrast with the shadows and the lighting on the lawn and in the beds of heather beds either side.

This is my contribution to yesterday's International Sketchcrawl. I've not been well just recently and walking has been difficult, so I couldn't contemplate the normal sort of activities associated with a sketchcrawl. I even had to change shoes to get round this garden!

Tip - correcting colour in photos

I took a photo of the pen and ink sketch so you could see how I sketch in pen and ink and how much I do before I started adding coloured pencil.

However, I was sat in a very shady spot and, on the left above, is what my photo came out looking like. On the right is what it looked like after I'd wrestled with it in Photoshop. (Click on either/both to see larger versions).

To lose the blue colour cast I didn't use the colour cast function. Instead I used the Levels function to adjust each of the Red, Green and Blue settings individually (basically pulling in the ends - whatever that's called) and then I upped the brightness and contrast. It took a few goes but suddenly it came together. I'm very much of the opinion that it's well worthwhile getting to grips with the Levels function and Lighting generally in PS. Ever since I've started focusing on using Levels, I've found that I've got much better results with removing colour casts and getting much more natural colour from photos - although stay away from Auto Levels as it produces very odd results.

Apologies

Apologies to regular readers - I've been neglecting this blog in the last month and need to set to and do quite a few 'backlog' posts as a catch up.

Links:

• Great Comp Garden, Comp Lane, Platt, Kent TN15 8QS
• International Sketchcrawl
  

10th International Sketchcrawl - the results

As previously indicated here is the first of previous posts relating to travels with my sketchbook. This is a copy of the text and images originally posted to Making a Mark last July. I'm going to develop an index to all the London-oriented blog posts which will then be posted as a summary in the side column.

_________________________

Yesterday was the 10th International Sketchcrawl. I participated as part of a small London Group, most of whom were linked to the Association of Illustrators. These are my sketches (minus the people I sketched on the tube at the beginning and end of the day!

I travelled from to Southwark Cathedral (our agreed meeting place) via the District Line, Monument Tube and London Bridge - so all of this is about 30 minutes from my home in London.

I produced 5 sketches in total, 3 large (double page spread in my black hardback Daler Rowney sketchbook) and two small (double page spread in the Moleskine). I used a pen with sepia ink, pencil and coloured pencils. If you click on any of the sketches you can see a larger version.

In order the sketches are:
- a fish, poultry and game stall stall in Borough Market (which was established at the foot of London Bridge in the 1200s (completed 1.35pm) The market has stalls belonging to suppliers from all over the UK. This particular stall belongs to the Furness Fish, Game and Poultry Supplies who are based in Ulverston in Cumbria.

Borough Market has gained prominence as a place where the true foodies shop. (my small haul was limited to vine tomatoes, chestnut mushrooms and salade de mache)! Jamie Oliver reputedly shops there and a number of films have been filmed in and around the market including Bridget Jones Diary, Lock Stock and two Smoking Barrels and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

- the view standing at the southern end of London Bridge looking east. From left to right are: the Tower of London, HMS Belfast, Tower Bridge - with 1 Canada Place at Canary Wharf in the background. (completed 2.25pm)

I was really fighting the wind at this point and was holding on to everything as I had to stand up to see this (which due to the disability in my feet is not at all easy!) and rest the sketchbook on the parapet of the bridge. Then of course I was also a minor attraction and free tour guide for all the visitors to London!

- the scene outside the main entrance to Southwark Cathedral - with the amazing magenta pink fold up seats (completed 3.20pm). Met up again with the rest of the sketchers - including Chi Chi who has run into major tube problems. Swopped notes and agreed we all needed to do this again - probably in the same area as we only began to scratch the surface. Some sketchers then went off to watch the footie.

- Not being a huge footie fan, I continued to sketch. The next sketch is of the the scene at Wright Brothers, an Oyster and Porter House in one of the roads which borders Borough Market. It was completed at 4.20pm - just after the England versus Portugal match kicked off. Take a look at the link - little did I know what I was sketching - plus it has recipes!

- Finally, the scene from the side of the Thames looking towards Southwark Bridge and St Paul's Cathedral beyond. Completed at 5.35pm - at which point I headed back home - and got home just in time for the penalties. Need I say more?

We saw the modern replica of Golden Hind (but decided to leave it for another day!) and I didn't make it to the Globe Theatre or Tate Modern - although that would be feasible in a complete day of sketching.

All in all, a good day's sketching despite the extreme heat (for London). It was even more satisfying to get back home and find that lots of people were posting their sketches in the International Sketchcrawl Project that I started on the Wet Canvas website (for link see below). It was especially pleasing to see people producing sketches who had never sketched either from life and/or in public before my recent sketching class. Well done to all of them. It was even more satisfying to hear that many of them also had huge fun doing the sketchcrawl! :)

Links:
Sketchcrawl Forum (This is where details about all local sketchcrawl activities are posted + photos and sketches after the event))
Wet Canvas 10th International Sketchcrawl Project Discussion Thread - 30+ participants sketching all over the world -
Wet Canvas International Sketchcrawl Gallery of the sketches here
Sketching for Real - my sketching class

Technorati tags: art , drawing , coloured pencils , moleskine , pen and ink , pencil , plein air , sketching , sketchbook , sketchcrawl

Shad Thames, Tower Bridge and the Pool of London

Shad Thames, Guy's Hospital Tower, Tower Bridge and the Pool of London

from the Thames Path.
pencil and coloured pencil in double spread of daler rowney black hardback sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

This is the view from the Thames Path just to the east of Wapping Pier Head. From the left it features: Shad Thames, Guys Hospital Tower, the buildings along Tooley Street (south of the river between Tower Bridge and London Bridge), Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast, the Post Office Tower and - in the foreground - various boat landings and the discharge of one of the undergound rivers into the Thames.

It was bright and sunshiney and blowing a gale while I did this - hence it's rather undeveloped format. I was hanging on to the rail to avoid being blown away and cursing the fact that I'd forgotten (yet again) to put bulldog clips into my backpack. I think I need bulldog clips for my brain cells at times as I so often forget them. If I'm sensible I'll do what I usually do and attach some on a permanent basis to this sketchbook. I added some coloured pencil to the sketch when I got back home.

The location was so good that I fully intend to go back and there and do this one again when the weather is rather kinder.

Now for some details of the buildings and shapes in the sketch.

Thames Path
The Thames Path opened in 1996 and is about 184 miles long. It is a National Trail following the length of the River Thames from its source near Kemble in Gloucestershire to the Thames Barrier at Charlton. This section is on the north side of the river, south of Wapping High Street.

Shad Thames
This is the low block on the extreme left of the sketch. This is name of a street east of Tower Bridge on the south side of the River Thames. It runs west to east, The name is corruption of St John at Thames, a reference to the Knights Templar of the Order of St John who owned land locally.

In Victorian times, Shad Thames included the largest warehouse complex in London. Completed in 1873, the warehouses housed huge quantities of tea, coffee, spices and other commodities, which were unloaded and loaded onto river boats. In the 20th century the area went into decline, and the last warehouses closed in 1972.

However, Shad Thames was regenerated in the 1980s and 1990s, when the disused but picturesque warehouses throughout the area were converted into expensive flats, many with restaurants, bars, shops, etc. on the ground floor. Most notable in this regeneration was designer and restaurateur Terence Conran, who opened a number of now well-known riverside restaurants including Pont de la Tour, the Blueprint Cafe and the Butler's Wharf Chop House. Numerous other restaurants, cafes, bars and shops have also sprung up. Shad Thames' artistic character has encouraged a variety of other businesses to move to the area, such as architects, small art galleries and wine merchants; the thriving local property market means that there are also many estate agents. (Wikipedia / Shad Thames)

When I first came to London, my boyfriend and I were both very interested in the conservation of historic buildings and significant architecture and historical geography. We used to go for walks down Shad Thames which at that time - in the late 70s - was extremely grim and depressing, verging on derelict. The input made by the council, Terence Conran and other developers has made an astounding difference. This is the place to go if you want to eat and gaze at Tower Bridge. But I'm saving comments on the restaurants for a book!

The Design Museum is one of the world’s leading museums of modern and contemporary design and is located just off the left of the page - in a modern building in the part of Shad Thames which had to be cleared for development.

Guy's Tower

Guys Tower is the shape sticking up on the left. Guy's Hospital was founded in 1721 and in 1974 it added the 34 storey Guy's Towerto its site to the east of London Bridge and south of London Bridge station. At 143 metres (469 feet) high, it's the tallest hospital building in the world, and the 11th tallest building in London. I've been to many a function in the suite at the top of Guy's Tower and the views from there are simply amazing. I've even stood right on the very top - but that's another story!

The Pool of London
The Pool of London lies between London Bridge to just past Tower Bridge (more or less where I was standing for my earlier sketches). It is one of the most historic parts of the Thames riverside. Settlements on its banks go back to Roman times. You can read more about its history and what happened in the different historic periods here.

Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge, in the centre of the sketch, is close to the Tower of London which gives it its name. It is an iconic symbol of London but is sometimes mistakenly called London Bridge, which is actually the next bridge upstream (going west). It's the boundary between the Upper and Lower parts of the Pool of London. It was built due to pressure for a bridge east of London Bridge and adjacent to the expansion of population to the east of the City of London and around the Pool of London. It opened on 30 June1894 after eight years of construction. Its central section opens up to let ships through. The bridge lifting/opening dates and times can be found here - along with the name of the ship which will be going through.

Tooley Street
George Orwell (the author of 1984) sampled life as a tramp in Tooley Street in 1930 and then wrote his notes up in the Bermondsey Library and published his book based on these - "Down and Out in London and Paris". Tooley Street used to be my route home when I used to work near London Bridge.

HMS Belfast
HMS Belfast is the shape sticking up just beyond Tower Bridge. It's a Town Class Cruiser launched in 1938 and has been a museum ship permanently moored next to Tower Bridge since 1971. Great fun for small boys!

BT / "Post Office" Tower
The BT / Post Office Tower, a very slim, very tall telecommunications hub, can be seen popping up on the horizon on the right of the sketch. I was a bit surprised to see it there - but I've noticed before it pops up when you're not epecting it! ;). This could be to do with the fact that apparently until the mid 1990s it was an official secret and never actually appeared on any map! I'm sure there must be a word for phenomena like that!

Links:

• Wikipedia: Shad Thames
  
• Wikipedia: Tooley Street
• Wikipedia: Tower Bridge
• Wikipedia: Pool of London
  
• Wikipedia: HMS Belfast
  
• Tower Bridge website
• Pool of London website
  
• Design Museum website
  
• How to get to the Design Museum

Technorati tags: coloured pencils, drawing, River Thames, sketch,sketchbook,

Rotherhithe: the Mayflower and Brunel

Rotherhithe: the Mayflower Inn, St Mary's Church Brunel's Engine House
8" x 10", pencil and coloured pencil in Moleskine
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The first of my sketches on the 13th Internationl Sketchcrawl is this view done from the Thames Path in Wapping. On the south side of the River Thames is Rotherhithe and a site associated with the start of a famous journey. The ship called the Mayflower which carried the Pilgrims to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. was based in Rotherhithe. In the summer of 1620. she was hired to transport a group of colonists and set sail from close to the very small white building just to the left of centre - which is the Mayflower Inn. The ship's co-owner and captain, Christopher Jones, lived in Rotherhithe and was buried in the churchyward of St Mary's Church in 1622. You can see the church steeple to the right of my sketch. You can also see the chimneys associated with the Brunel Engine House and the Thames Tunnel which Brunel built under the Thames between Rotherhithe and Wapping.

Rotherhithe
Rotherhithe is nearly a peninsula on the south side of the Thames in the London Borough of Southwark. In the past it's always had a very close association with the sea. Seafaring, ship building, and ship breaking were major industries in the area for centuries and its maritime heritage still dominates the area.

Many great voyages started or finished here, including Drakes’ circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580 in the Golden Hind (a replica of which is now at Bankside where I sketched for the July 2006 Sketchcrawl).

The big commercial docks area in the Rotherhithe area fell out of use in the second half of the twentieth century and the area declined before being regenerated over the last twenty years. Many of the old Wharf side buildings such as the ones in the sketch have been converted to residential use and now contain expensive apartments.

The Mayflower
Between 1609 and 1622, the Mayflower was based at Rotherhithe and used primarily as a cargo ship, involved in active trade of goods (often wine) between England and other European countries and was mastered by Christopher Jones, who would command the ship on the famous transatlantic voyage of the Pilgrims between Plymouth on the south coast of England and Plymouth Massachusetts. You may think that everybody has always known where the Mayflower came from but that's not so. According to the Plimouth Foundation this fact wasn't in fact known until early in the twentieth century

a researcher named R.G. Marsden searched the English High Court of Admiralty Records in 1904, looking for a matching vessel that could have traveled from London between July 1620 and May 1621. This proved to be a lengthy operation as "Mayflower" was a popular ship's name, but he eventually reduced the number to six, and finally to one, the Mayflower of Harwich, whose master was Christopher Jones. (Plimoth Planation, Press Rlease re. Mayflower II)

Although the The Mayflower returned to Rotherhithe, Project Mayflower was created in 1955 to construct a reproduction of the Mayflower and sail it to America as a symbolic gesture of Anglo-American friendship. This ship is now docked at the State Pier on the waterfront in Plymouth Massachusetts.

The Mayflower Inn
The small white building in the centre is the inn known as "The Mayflower"

THE MAYFLOWER PUBLIC HOUSE 117 Rotherhithe Street SE16 Tel: 0207 237 4088 Rotherhithe, Bermondsey 47 188 225 P11
The Mayflower is near to where Captain Christopher Jones moored his ship Mayflower before sailing to America with the Pilgrim fathers. The ship returned in 1621, and Captain Jones is buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s. The Mayflower is one of the few pubs licensed to sell stamps and also has permission to sell American ones. It was rebuilt in the 18th century as the Spread Eagle and Crown. It was re-named Mayflower in the 1960s. (From Southwark Council: Discover Southwark - Rotherhithe)

St Mary's Rotherhithe
Christopher Jones, Master of the Ship, lived in Rotherhithe; his children were baptised at St Mary's and his body is buried in the churchyard although the exact site of his burial plot is unknown. This BBC webpage provides some interesting information about the construction of the chuch and its links to the Pilgrims. It was originally built in the twelth century and was rebuilt in the Georgian era and includes timbers from the Temeraire - the ship featured in Turner's very famous painting "The Fighting Temeraire" voted the greatest painting in a British Art gallery in 2005. I'd never thought before about where the event that Tuner depicted actually happened - but it must have been somewhere around about where I sketched.

This is Turner's lament for the passing of the age of the great sailing ships. The Téméraire was a grand ship who had played a distinguished role in Nelson's victory at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and who now suffered the indignity of being towed away to a ship breaking yard by a modern steam tug bellowing smoke. (Tate Britain: Turner Online Gallery)

Brunel's Engine House
The sketch shows the chimneys associated with Brunel's Engine House and the very first tunnel underneath the Rover Thames in. The engine house held steam powered pumps used to extract water from the tunnel. The Thames Tunnel was the first tunnel to be dug under a navigable river through soft earth using a tunnel shield. The tunnel was constructed so as to permit pedestrian traffic between the north and south banks of the Thames without obstructing the very busy river and its commercial traffic. It is still in use carrying the East London Line below the River Thames, part of the London Underground network.

The Thames Tunnel was also the very first project of Isambard Kingdom Brunel who worked on it with his father Marc Brunal although it nearly killed him when there was a tunnel collapse

BRUNEL ENGINE HOUSE Tunnel Road, Rotherhithe, London SE16 4LF Tel:020 7231 3840 Rotherhithe Bermondsey Tel: 020 7231 3840
In building the Thames tunnel (the world’s first tunnel under a stretch of water), Sir Marc Brunel had to overcome considerable geological, engineering and financial difficulties. Brunel Engine House is the restored pumping house that Sir Marc built for the steam engines, which drained the tunnel. Packed with information about this amazing engineering feat, it is also one of the most important industrial archaeology sites in London.. (From Southwark Council: Discover Southwark - Rotherhithe)

Thames Path
A National Trail which follows the Thames for 184 miles from its source in the Cotswolds to the Thames Barrier. It is signposted and in London runs along both banks. There is an official guide book. There is an online guide and the 2007 fifth edition of the The Thames Path (National Trail Guides) with maps written by David Sharp, giving information on places to stay, facilities and services along the Path, is now available.

Finally, the shape on the left is a high-speed sketch of one of today's river boats which ply up and down the Thames carrying tourists. It's a bit of a change from the Mayflower and the Temeraire!

I've learned a lot from doing this sketch - mostly about how rewarding it can be to dig behind the basic facts you know about places in the area where you live. Plus I think I'm going to go back and do a much better drawing of this VERY historic site!

Links:

• London Borough of Southwark: Discover Historic Southwark - Rotherhithe
  
• London Borough of Southwark: Discover Historic Southwark - Mayflower
  
• Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth Massachusetts - concerning Mayflower II, a reproduction of the ship that brought a small group of English colonists, popularly known as the "Pilgrims," to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620.
• Wikipedia: Rotherhithe
• Wikipedia: Mayflower
  
• Wikipedia: Brunel's Engine House
• Photographs of Brunel's Pump House
• London Footprints.co.uk: Rotherhithe
• Thames Path.co.uk: Online Guide
• Tate Britian: Tuner Online Gallery
  

Technorati tags: coloured pencils, drawing, Mayflower, River Thames, Rotherhithe, sketch,sketchbook,

13th International Sketchcrawl: Sketches of the Pool of London

Saturday 18th March 2007 was the day of the 13th International Sketchcrawl and did not go as originally planned, so my sketchcrawl ended up being very local - down alongside the Thames and the Pool of London between Tower Bridge and Wapping/Rotherhithe. I started just east of Wapping Station and walked down Wapping High Street towards Pier Head with diversions to the Thameside Path.

As the views I sketched all involve rather historic sites, I'm going to post these as three separate posts for:

• a view of Rotherhithe and the place from which the Mayflower set sail with the Pilgrim Fathers on its journey to Plymouth Massachusetts:
  
• Wapping Pier Head
  
• Shad Thames, Tower Bridge and the Pool of London (from Wapping)
  

All of these posts will be added to the River Thames and London categories on this blog and the River Thames section of "Travels with a Sketchbook in London" on my website.

I've also decided in the light of the number of Thameside sketches I've now done to develop "The Thames and its environs" as a bit more of a sketchbook theme in the future.

Links:

• International Sketchcrawls Forum
• International Sketchcrawls - Saturday 17th March 2007
• Pastels and Pencils: Travels with a Sketchbook in London
  

Technorati tags: blogging, drawing, ,international sketchcrawl making a mark, sketch, sketchbook

A new purpose and format for Travels with a Sketchbook

The "Travels with my Sketchbook" page from my website
http://www.pastelsandpencils.com/travels_with_a_sketchbook.html

In future, in order to keep all my sketches done on my travels in one place, this blog will be used for sketches from various activities associated with domestic travels. It will also continue to be used, as it has been in the past, for blogging about:

• sketching on international trips,
  
• art kits/supplies for sketch trips and
  
• the sketchbooks of other travelling sketchers.

To get this started I'm going to post the images and narrative from past posts on "Making a Mark" on this blog which relate to:

• International Sketchcrawls - see 'International Sketchcrawls' label
  
• Sketches done of the views seen while travelling either side of the River Thames - see 'River Thames' label
• Sketches of places in London - see 'London' label
• Sketches done while visiting National Trust and other heritage sites in the UK - see 'National Trust and UK Heritage'
• Sketches done while visiting Art Galleries and Museums - see 'Art Galleries and Museums' label;
  
• Sketches done while visiting various hostelries (restaurants, cafes, wine bars, pubs) - see 'Interiors - eating and drinking' label
  

This isn't going to happen overnight and I'm sorry if their publication as the transfer takes place irritates people who've already seen them but I can't think of another way of doing it. Any suggestions for alternative ways of doing this will be gratefully received.

Sketches will still be posted on Making a Mark with a brief narrative - but the more detailed narrative with links will be kept to this blog. Given the time sometimes needed to write the narrative, there may sometimes be an interval between the two posts.

As and when I have the time I will also post sketches from past international trips and write about the places associated with each sketch.

So in summary - what are the changes?

• For those who just want to read "Making a Mark", you'll see less text with the sketches posted on this blog
• For those who just like sketches, you'll have a blog which is just dedicated to sketching - plus quite a lot of information about the places I visit.
• For those who like both blogs: I'm afraid it means two places to visit if you want all the information which I like writing about and want to post with my sketches. Mind you it's not a problem if you've subscribed to the blog and got a feed reader or an e-mail subscription. (For subscriptions to either see the top of the right hand column).
  

Do let me know what you think about this change by using the comments function.

Links: Making a Mark

Technorati tags: blogging, drawing, making a mark, sketch, sketchbook,