4th Annual Exhibition by Urban Sketchers London - at Timberyard Soho

The fourth exhibition by London Urban Sketchers - and the third at branches of Timberyard - opens next week on Monday 2nd November.

It's really great to be one of the launch exhibitions at a brand new branch of Timberyard in Soho - and for the exhibition to be on until the end of April 2016.

I've been busy for the last few weeks organising the exhibition alongside the core team for the exhibition of James Hobbs, Nathan Breville and Evelyn Rowland.  James does liaison with our exhibition and event partners, Nathan and Evelyn are doing the really big job which is the hang next weekend and I'm doing admin and marketing. I organised the call for entries and selection. My next job is labels! (see How to make labels for an art exhibition)

Urban Sketchers London at Timberyard Soho

From Blackfriars Bridge by James Hobbs

WHERE: Timberyard Soho
AT: 4 Noel Street, London W1F 8GB
OPEN: Monday to Friday - 8am-8pm; Saturday & Sunday 10am-6pm
WHEN: Monday 2nd November - 30th April 2016.
@timberyarduk, @urbsketchlondon

Timberyard create workplaces for creative people fused with speciality tea and coffee.

It's very appropriate that our exhibition should be associated with these brilliant coffee shops because very often after a sketchcrawl we go for a coffee. Then we admire each other's sketches and spend much time chatting about sketching kits!

Linked Events

You can get involved with any one of our three linked events planned at present - we may have more in 2016!

• The Private View is on 3rd November between 6.30 and 9pm and regular readers of this blog are most welcome
• There is a Sketchcrawl on Saturday 14th November - starting and finishing at Timberyard - Liberty's (Great Marlborough Street) to the BBC (Langham Place) - 
• There is also a Book Event on 25th November - of which more later.  I'll be signing my book alongside James Hobbs and Isobel Carmona with their books. Plus we'll have the latest books by other Urban Sketchers.

Selected Sketchers

As well as me, these the names of the other urban sketchers whose sketches are included in the exhibition: Sangeeta Bhagawati, Elizabeth Blunt, Nathan Brenville, Julie Bolus, Isabel Carmona, Jo Dungey, Katy Evans, James Hobbs, Isabelle Laliberte, Daniel Lloyd-Morgan, Choon Low,  Dolores Kitchener, Tom Ledger,  Paulina Little, Simone Menken, Olya Osipova, Simon Privett, Nick Richards, Evelyn Rowland, Sue Smith, John Swanson, Marissa Lee Swinghammer, and Tony Underhill.

The sketches are a mix of ones done on our regular monthly sketchcrawls and those sketched while people have been out and about London. Links in the names are to their websites or blogs. Do please take a look at their other work.

Previous Exhibitions

The Art of Sketching - our first exhibition at Foyles

Previous exhibitions:

• 2012: the first exhibition also celebrated the launch in the UK of the book about The Art of Urban Sketching 
• The Art of Urban Sketching - at Foyles in London and 
• USk London blog: Urban Sketchers London exhibition opens at Foyles
• 2014 Timberyard Seven Dials (January 2014): the one I missed due to writing my book was at the Seven Dials branch of Timberyard - see 
• USk London blog: Urban Sketchers London Exhibition! (Seven Dials) and 
• Urban Sketchers Exhibition Private View
• 2014: Timberyard Old Street (March - June 2014) - 
• Urban Sketchers London - new exhibition at Timberyard (Old Street) and 
• Usk London blog: Urban Sketchers London exhibition at Timberyard Old Street 

Some of the exhibiting artists at our last exhibition at Old Street 
Thomas Corrie, Isabelle Laliberté, James Hobbs and Jhin-Ren Shih

Sketching Cambridge: Magdalene College and Magdalene Bridge

Magdalene Bridge - sketching the sketchers and the Scudamore Punters
pen and ink and coloured pencils, 9" x 12"
on Arches HP Block

On Sunday 23rd August I drove up the M11 to Cambridge to join the Urban Sketching Cambridge Group ( also at https://www.facebook.com/uskcambridge) which is based there.

They had got permission to sketch inside Magdalene College.  For some reason I spent all my student years in Cambridge without ever knowing anybody in the east part of the college so this was a novel experience for me.

They were planning on a couple of hours sketching before lunch - and I wanted to see the Watercolour exhibition at the Fitzwilliam in the afternoon so I needed to be speedy!

I decided to focus on just doing pen and ink sketches and then adding colour when I got back home.

I started by sitting in the corners of one of the courtyards of Magdalene College and sketched the sketchers.

Magdalene College: Pen and ink sketches of Cambridge Urban Sketchers #1
11" x 8" in a Moleskine Sketchbook

Next are the two sketches above completed with colour - using coloured pencils - when I got home. I'm not sure who I've sketched in #2 below!

Magdalene College: Pen and ink sketches of Cambridge Urban Sketchers #2
pen and ink and colour pencils in Moleskine sketchbook

Magdalene College: Pen and ink sketches of Cambridge Urban Sketchers #3
Sketching Sue Smith under the Pepys Library Portico (or is it a Loggia?)
- the words at the top say Bibliotheca Pepysiana 1724
pen and ink and colour pencils in Moleskine sketchbook

I then moved around the river side of the college and drew from the wall which separates it from the River Cam and the extremely busy Scudamore Punt station. I listened to lots of different punter guides explaining the college and the bridge and Cambridge generally to those on guided tours while sat in a large punt.  I also watched a few novice punters receiving their instruction on what to do when taking out a punt for the first time.

If I'd had more time I'd have loved to have drawn the comings and goings of the punters beneath me - especially the bit where those who knew the rules came up against those who didn't!

It's not too far to Cambridge - so I shall be back sketching with the group again - although maybe not every outing.  I saw some amazing sketches at lunchtime - not least the panoramic sketches done by Peter Wenman

Panoramic sketchbook by Peter Wenman held by
Peter Wenman on the left and Yasemin Gyford on the right

It was also great being back in a place which holds lots of memories from being a student 40 YEARS ago!  I walked with a friend down Trinity Street and Kings Parade to the Fitzwilliam Museum with a constant chorus from me of

• "That's just the same!" (e.g. Heffers and all the colleges and Fitzbillies - even if I did forget precisely where the latter was!) and 
• "Oooh, that's changed!" (e.g. The Copper Kettle looks completely different and whatever happened to Eaden Lilley who did my graduation photo?).

The Shard from Greenwich Pier

Yesterday I did this sketch of The Shard and London skyline on the River Thames from a seat in front of the Old Royal Naval College/Hospital at Greenwich - just beyond Greenwich Pier.

So first here's the sketch. There were amazing clouds yesterday. I was half tempted just to sketch the sky!

The Shard from Greenwich Pier
pen and ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook, 10 x 8inches
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Next is the Moleskine Sketchbook with pencils as I was finishing

Sketchbook and pencils - nearly finished
As you can see quite an assortment of pencils are used - I'm not a dedicated one brand only person.

then the sketchbook again - but this time with the view

The Shard is in the distance and Greenwich Pier is in the foreground
He who must be bored while I sketch holds up my sketchbook for the photo with the view
(He was reading 'Shakespeare' by Bill Bryson - while I sketched. Looked interesting!)

and finally a pic of the place where I was sketching

We were sat on the seat just in front of the Old Royal Hospital - which is now the University of Greenwich.
I was looking up the river past the end of the pier on the left
If you sit at this spot you usually get the sound of somebody practising a musical instrument
coming out of the windows behind you!

Sketchcrawl at the British Museum (February 2015)

I always seem to be late posting sketches from Sketchcrawls! These are three from last month's Urban Sketchers London visit to the British Museum.

I avoided the architecture and stuck with the artifacts in the cases and a rather splendid sculpture above one door.  Some of them are very difficult to draw - but I'm not showing you my failures!

Painted Statue of a Woman 2000-1600BC (Old Babylonian)

British Museum 7 February 2015

Not quite sure what the name is for a statue above a door This is Indugud (c.2,500BC) - it looked like an eagle and stags to me but it was about 25 feet up in the air!
British Museum 7 February 2015

These are African Masks made from all sorts of things - but wood is very popular
The masks at the top are of Women and the ones at the bottom are of wild animals
British Museum 7 February 2015

Today there's another sketchcrawl at the V&A Museum in South Kensington which I'm leaving to join now.  It finishes at 3.30pm so still time to get along and join in!

An invitation to a Private View and a Sketchcrawl

Next Thursday evening, the Private View for the third exhibition of drawings by Urban Sketchers London takes place at Timberyard's Old Street branch on the evening of Thursday 10 April.

All those fellow sketchers who know me and can get to it are invited! I'll be there on the night sketchbook in hand! Leave a comment below if the date fits your diary (sorry for the short notice!)

Timberyard, 61-67 Old Street, London EC1V 9HW

Drawings by (top) Katherine Tyrrell
(bottom Jhih-Ren Shih

In addition to an opportunity to meet the artists - and maybe sketch with them - there will be live jazz from students at the nearby Guildhall School of Music.

The work of the six artists, Thomas Corrie, James Hobbs, Isabelle Laliberté, Jhih-Ren Shih, Katherine Tyrrell and Zhenia Vasiliev, ranges across everything that makes London the beautiful city it is: architecture, parks, its inhabitants, its iconic views and the forgotten and often overlooked corners of the city that stopping to draw can often bring into focus. The exhibits range in styles and approaches, but are all drawn from observation.

"Drawing in a sketchbook makes you slow down and look at your surroundings in a more reflective and inquiring way," says James Hobbs, an advisory board member of Urban Sketchers and the author of the newly published book Sketch Your World. "And cafes like Timberyard are popular places to relax, draw and share those images through social media."

Thomas Corrie and his friend relax
after hanging his artwork

Exhibitors include:

• Architects Thomas Corrie and Isabelle Laliberté
• James Hobbs, freelance editor and author of Sketch Your World
• Katherine Tyrrell, who has a book about drawing published later this year
• Digital designer Zhenia Vasiliev
• Graphic designer Jhih-Ren Shih

Private View: 10th April 2014 (evening) at Timberyard www.timberyardlondon.com

61-67 Old Street, London EC1V 9HW

Exhibition: The show continues until 30 June and follows the second exhibition by different members of London's Urban Sketchers at the Seven Dials brand of Timberyard branch earlier this year. 

See the video taken during the hanging of the exhibition.

Sketchcrawl (date to be announced): There's also going to be a Sketchcrawl - using Timberyards as a base - in the near future but we've still to agree a date! Everyone is welcome to the event – the date is to be announced on social media shortly. The cafe will be the starting point for a planned sketchcrawl – a relaxed gathering of artists of all backgrounds, ages and abilities – that will work its way, around Old Street and the Barbican, stopping to draw on the way.

Urban Sketchers London: The group is part of a growing worldwide community of blogging artists – www.urbansketchers.org – who draw on location in and around the cities and towns where they live and visit. For more information about the show and London's Urban Sketchers visit urbansketchers-london.blogspot.com or follow @urbsketchlondon on Twitter

Urban Sketchers: Urban Sketchers was started by the Seattle-based reportage artist Gabriel Campanario in 2007, and now has regional blogs in more than 30 cities, an annual symposium and more than 32,000 Facebook followers, and it raises funds for artists grants and scholarships.

Urban Sketchers London - new exhibition at Timberyard (Old Street)

Urban Sketchers London has a new exhibition - its third - at Timberyard (Old Street) which is one of those very trendy coffee shops with great food and even better coffee.

Thomas Corrie, Isabelle Laliberté, James Hobbs and Jhih-Ren Shih

The six members of Urban Sketchers London who made the trek to Clerkenwell this morning to hang their sketches are:

• James Hobbs - author of Sketch Your World
• Thomas Corrie
• Isabelle Laliberté
• Zhenia Vasiliev
• Jhih-Ren Shih
• and me!

Most of the sketches have been hung in the basement. They're a great range of styles - as you can see from the video (below) and include those of three people who will be featuring in my new book about drawing and sketching! I've included short profiles of them below - with some photos which are looking awful because I adjusted a setting - and forgot to change it back!



There's going to be a private view sometime very soon for those in London who follow my sketches and those of other urban sketchers - I'll let you know the date as soon as it's confirmed.

In the meantime here's my pics of some of the work

Thomas Corrie produces some stunning pen and ink drawings of architectural features which take his fancy.

I am an architect and I draw to help me see and understand buildings and cities. Every year I take part in 28 Drawings Later, a challenge to draw something for every day in February. To keep focused I decided to use entrances as a theme for my sketches and I travelled to every location on my bicycle, usually in the morning before starting work. I sought out places I had not previously visited as well as going to some familiar sights.

Thomas Corrie with his drawings produced using pigment ink liners in a 200mm sketchbook

Jhih-Ren Shih (a.k.a. Lion Ren on Flickr) is an MA student from Wimbledon College of Art who had a very nifty app on his iPhone for testing out whether he had got his frames level!

I started sketching around five years ago. I saw a book talk about the urban sketch that evokes me to depicting my daily life. As a foreigner from Taiwan, I’m very exciting when I came to London, the exotic atmosphere intrigue me to drawing more and more sketches here. I like to explore to city with my sketches, especially when I found some scenes interesting or special. It not only just record my daily life in UK, also help me to communicate with the places I been to. 

Works by Isabelle Laliberté

Isabelle is an architect.

I have always drawn and painted a little, but joining Urban Sketchers in 2008 really freed my practice.  Sketching allows me to have richer memories of my travels.  Unlike a photograph, which is done in an instant, a sketch allows me to absorb more 'meta-data': the weather, the sounds, the smells, the light and the people are all embedded into a sketch.  As an architect, I have a natural tendency to draw the built environment - not only do I love buildings, but they tend not to move around so much...

James Hobbs is the ex-Editor of Artists & Illustrators, the current Editor of Discover Art and the author or Sketch Your World - which has now been published in the UK, USA and Asia.

Drawing in a sketchbook can change your view of the world. I usually carry an A6 and A5 sketchbook around with me, along with a small selection of permanent marker pens. The urban landscape, particularly that of my adopted home of London, is for me an endlessly diverting and energising subject. I sometimes use these drawings to make colour digital prints, which I sell in limited editions. 

Zhenia Vasiliev and Naomi Hobbs were a fabulous support in hanging my work. (I fall over too easily these days!). Unfortunately my photograph of his work is too bad to show.

For me, as both a graphic designer and illustrator, artistic practice is about a process of thinking rather than producing a finished piece. I love to think about the visual appearance of things - and drawing helps me with this, so sketching is a big part of my profession

my sketches of Syon Vista and Syon Reach

Urban Sketchers London - Sketchcrawl #3 in South Kensington

Today's the day of the third Urban Sketchers London Sketchcrawl - and everybody is welcome!  

Details are on the flyer below.

• start in the Central Hall (the one with the skeleton of the dinosaur) of the Natural History Museum at 11.00am
• finish inside at the Victoria & Albert Museum at 4.30pm (when it will be dark outside)

There are also opportunities to draw skaters on the ice rink outside the Natural History Museum - and below is the sketch I did last time I visited and sketched in Winter!

The nearest tube is South Kensington (Circle, District and Piccadilly Lines) which is right opposite both museums.  Couldn't be easier! (This is the map of the planned closures on the Underground this weekend)

PS If you're planning on sketching outside bring your thermals - it's cold!

Sailing ships and the City of London from Greenwich Park

This is the first of the sketches from the Greenwich Park Panorama - my 48 inch wide panoramic sketch of the view from the top of the hill in Greenwich Park.

The City of London and the River Thames from Greenwich Park
11 x 16" pen and ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Sailing Ships and Maritime History

While people looking at this view typically pick out all the tall buildings around and about the City of London, few realise that they are also looking at a place which has played a huge part in British Maritime History.

Here are the site of the Prime Meridian - which helped sailors navigate; the place where the Royal Dockyards were located for 350 years; the place were Brunel built enormous steam sailing ships in the ninteenth century and finally the home of the Cutty Sark - one of the fastest tea clippers ever built,

What's in the sketch

Looking left from the hill - past the trees and bushes which populate the slope below the Royal Observatory at Greenwich you can see a variety of buildings which I've annotated on the Flickr version of this sketch.  Hold your cursor over the image in Flickr to see where all the places and buildings are located.

You can see - from left to right

• The path up to the Royal Observatory and the marker site for the Prime Meridian zero degrees longitude aka the Greenwich Meridian (just off to the left and out of frame)
• The 34 storey tower at Guy's Hospital - the tallest hospital building in the world
• The Shard - the tallest building in the UK and Europe at 309.6 metres / 1,016 feet high
• the area in Deptford which used to be the Royal Naval Dockyards - building sailing ships for war and exploration for 350 years - after it was commissioned by King Henry VIII in 1513 (see image below).  It built and refitted many famous ships in British maritime history.

Deptford Dockyards by Joseph Farrington

• St Paul's Cathedral - now a rather smaller landmark in the City of London when compared to......
• Three tall buildings in the City of London
• the former NatWest Tower
• the Gherkin at 30 St Mary Axe
• Heron Tower - now the tallest building in the City of London
• In front of these is the Wharf in Millwall on the western shoreline of the Isle of Dogs where Isambard Kingdon Brunel built the steam sailing ship the SS Great Eastern which was the largest ship in the world when it was launched from Millwall in 1853.  This is also where the famous photo of Brunel was taken - against the background of the chains used to launch the Great Eastern
• Peeping above the trees in the middle ground are the two masts of the Cutty Sark - the tea clipper which has recently reopened after the massive refurbishment project
• On the right and in the foreground are the Equestrian Arena and other buildings built for the  London 2012 Olympics

The sketch was the first to be drawn on 15th September when I drew the panorama of the view from the top of Greenwich Hill during the course of the 2nd Sketchcrawl hosted by Urban Sketchers London.

Greenwich Park Panorama

This is my very big sketch of the panoramic view from the top of the hill in Greenwich Park on the day of the Urban Sketchers had their 2nd Sketchcrawl.

The panoramic view from the top of the hill in Greenwich Park
- complete with Equestrian Arena for the Olympics 2012
pen and ink and coloured pencils,
11" x 48" (3 double page spreads in Moleskine Sketchboook)
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

It was sketched in three double page spreads.  I'll start unpicking the panorama tomorrow and then  I can show you the constituent parts!  It includes:

• the Shard, St Paul's Cathedral and the City of London
• Canary Wharf, the Old Royal Naval College and the Equestrian Event Arena used for the Olympics and Paralympics
• the O2 (formerly the Millennium Dome)

For the record I was also sat about 30 feet east of the Prime Meridian ie 0 degrees longitude!

I got it all drawn out while I was there and most of the colour down.  However as always it takes a little longer to get the dark values reinforced which I've been picking away at last week when i had a moment.

I only saw this for the first time myself about 10 minutes ago!  Up to now I've been hoping three double page spreads would join up!

I'm thinking I maybe need to return with a roll of drawing paper so I can draw the landscape the way they used to be drawn in the past.

The Art of Urban Sketching Exhibition - my contribution

Sketches of London by Katherine Tyrrell
for The Art of Urban Sketching Exhibition at Foyles Bookshop
16-22 July 2012

These are now on their way to the hang of the The Art of Urban Sketching Exhibition - which is happening today - starting at 11.30am!

This exhibition is being held this next week in The Gallery at Foyles, Third Floor, 113-119 Charing Cross Road. It is part of the Foyles Sketching the City Season and the Urban Sketchers London Events Programme relating to the launch of the new book about Urban Sketching by Gabi Campanario and the other Urban Sketchers.  See The Art of Urban Sketching - at Foyles in London for more details

From top left - going round clockwise - the sketches are of:

• Syon Vista (Kew Gardens)
• Syon Reach (River Thames between Syon House and Kew Gardens)
• Bankside Shoreline (outside the Bankside Gallery - home of the RWS and RE - and next to Blackfriars Bridge)
• View from the The Portrait Restaurant (at the top of the National Portrait Gallery - includes Nelson's Column and Big Ben)
• Burlington House Courtyard - on a rainy day (view from the front of Burlington House - home of the Royal Academy of Arts)

I won't split up my sketchbooks for anybody!

So in order to contribute to the exhibition I scanned the sketches, saved them as a tif file, resized all of them to A4, printed them on to Somerset Enhanced Velvet paper, restated the coloured pencil, matted them in Daler Rowney Studland Mountboard in Antique White and framed them! My better half did the mirror plates!

The exhibition also includes work by the other correspondents for Urban Skethchers London and page spreads from the book.

More pics of the exhibition tomorrow!

The Art of Urban Sketching - at Foyles in London

On Sunday, I shall be in Foyles Bookshop on the Charing Cross Road helping fellow members of Urban Sketchers London hang our exhibition of sketches of London in their Gallery.

I'll probably be posting photos of the hang and the exhibition on this blog next week!

The Art of Urban Sketching Exhibition is in The Gallery at Foyles, Third Floor, 113-119 Charing Cross Road. It is part of the Foyles Sketching the City Season and the Urban Sketchers London Events Programme relating to the launch the new Urban sketchers book. It comprises:

• prints of book spreads from the Urban Sketchers book The Art of Urban Sketching
• framed sketches by correspondents from London Urban Sketchers

The exhibition is free and is open from Monday 16th July until Sunday 22nd July. Opening hours are:

• Monday - Saturday 9.30am - 5pm and 
• Sunday 11.30am - 6pm.
• However beware that the Gallery may be closed for special events so you need to ring to check if it's open if you're coming specially to see the exhibition.

We're not having a PV however I'd love to know if you visited and what you thought of the show.

Here's the announcement as part of the list of events in the Sketching in the City season.

RIGHT CLICK THE IMAGE & OPEN IN NEW TAB TO READ
Images: top: Bankside Shoreline by Katherine Tyrrell; below: Spitalfields by James Hobbs

Tomorrow I'll be telling you how YOU can get your sketches of London in an exhibition at Foyles later this summer. [Update - see The London Sketchbook Challenge - Call for Entries on Making A Mark]

You can find Foyles at: 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB
You can contact Foyles: 

• Tel: +44 (0) 20 7437 5660 

• Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7434 1574 

• Email: customerservices@foyles.co.uk