Travels with a Sketchbook in...

Sunday, March 25, 2007

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.

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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

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Sketching at night by the Thames

St Pauls and the Silver Birches - a study

pencil in Moleskine
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Have you ever tried drawing at night? I've done it a couple of times recently when down at Bankside as there are great views (and lights) and, of course, the shapes and values all change from the daytime.

The interesting thing about sketching at night is that you can't see much detail whereas the big shapes are so much more obvious. It's becomes more a question of how to crop big shapes than trying to find something with interesting design potential within the context of a very busy skyline with lots of detail.

The only drawback at this time of year is it's so cold! I want to know where I can buy a pair of trousers with a thick thermal layer in the bottom bit so anything I sit down on doesn't feel quite so cold! As it is although my top half was snug my rear gets frozen in about 10 minutes flat so my strategy is to sketch very fast - absolutely no more than 10 minutes and ideally only five.

So on to my recent sketches:

The study of St. Paul's Cathedral eliminates all the detail that one tends to get distracted by at day and renders the buildings round about into a very submissive role. No doubt about which is the biggest most imposing building round here!

The study for St Paul's and the Silver Birches (above) was done sat on one of the benches outside Tate Modern. There's a great view at night of the Cathedral masked by the avenue of silver birches which are planted either side of the paths up to the Tate from the Thames Path next to the river. The birches are underlit - stonking great big lights coming up through the planting so the light effects are stunning (if a bit OTT 'designed'). The only thing I had to do was ignore the great big enormous fat column for the big overhead lights which had been plonked down exactly where it shouldn't be for that view. Some people have no sense of aesthetics! ;)

The Bridges is a curious and very quick sketch. I got a big surprise while sat at the top of a flight of (very, very cold) stone steps next to the reinstated Globe Theatre (thank you Sam Wanamaker). I need to go back when it's warmer and with a camera to try a longer sketch and to also capture an effect which made this view quite magical.

I'd been particularly attracted to the pattern made by the bridges and the foreshore againt the night sky. A boat came past and its bow created massive waves - and all the shadows in the water suddenly started to become very crazy and very graphic and completely mesmerising. I know what I saw but couldn't capture it. I need to be able sit there for longer than 10 minutes at low water at night and wait to get more than one boat coming past so I can study the effect and maybe try and get photos of it - although in my experience these rarely do justice to such effects.

I googled to see if I could find some examples of other people's drawings of night and had no luck. What I got instead was lots of night class drawings, drawings by insomniacs, lottery drawings at night and references to something Nathanial Hawthorne wrote! Obviously not a lot of people draw the nightime at night!

Anybody with any idea of any websites which have good images of drawings done of night at night please post them in the comments section!

Technorati tags:

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Taking a line for a walk - from Le Havre to Rome

Paul Klee once explained that "a drawing is simply a line going for a walk". In the summer of 2000, Christopher Lambert drew a straight blue line between Le Havre and Rome on a map of Europe when eighteen months short of his 70th birthday. He then set off with his all leather Brasher walking boots, a small rucksack, a couple of pens, some watercolour pencils and a sketchbook journal. 1,075 miles and 71 walking days later he arrived in Rome having taken a page each day to sketch and write about what he saw on his trip.

This is the hardback facsimile version of his sketchbook. As a concession to his handwriting, there is a thin typescript margin containing two lines of summary text about each day - as he says his writing gets a bit cramped at times!

Lambert developed a taste for long distance walking when, on his retirement, he walked 440 miles along five ancient footpaths across southern Britain to his new retirement home in Devon. For the Millennium he thought he'd like to try one of the pilgrim routes across Europe. Consequently, in July 2000 he set off carrying a pilgrim's passport - a letter of brotherly greetings in Latin from the Anglican Provost of Portsmouth Cathedral to Pope John Paul in the Vatican in Rome. On his trip he averaged just over 15 miles each walking day overall, although this inevitably varied along the route across France, through Switzerland, down through northern Italy and the 'thigh' of Italy to Rome. En route - and along his straight line - he visited Honfleur, Fontainebleau Forest, the Canal de Bourgogne, Dijon, Lausanne and from there along the ancient pilgrimage route, the Via Francigena, through the Grand St. Bernard pass across the Alps to Aosta, Lucca and Siena before reaching Rome.

What particularly appealed to me about this book is his habit of doing daily sketches while travelling - a habit I developed on my two USA trips last year (see RH column for more details). I also identified with his approach to sketching. He uses pen and ink to sketch, followed by coloured pencils to indicate values and form and something of local hues. The book contains over 240 illustrations of a huge variety of 'views', buildings, people, flowers, insects and the butterfly which sat on his hand one day while he drew (see below - page 52 Col du Grand St Bernard)

Pages 85 and 85 Lucca

"Taking a Line for a Walk"

His working life as an architect is evident in the ease with which his eye takes in and quickly absorbs the key features of complicated architecture. I loved the way he tells himself off when he's done something overly complicated - giving himself injunctions to simplify. Overall, despite what he says below, his style is very pleasing - being loose and unfussy. Some of the very simplest sketches have the greatest impact.

"The sketches had priority - to the extent that I would often make myself late departing from a place because I just had to record it....I wanted to shake off my architectural topographical style and in a few flicks of the pen and pencils capture the essence of a thing or place, but it very rarely happened. Nevertheless these small drawings became my footsteps as the miles elapsed and the pages filled...."

His habit of sketching over meals is also one with which I'm very familiar. I even suspect, given the nature of his sketches, that we might share the same habit of table hopping to find the table which offers the 'right' view. Which is not always the best view but rather is the one which lends itself best to sketching.

His meditations on walking, his surroundings and the impact that a long walk has on an individual are both interesting and powerful reminders to reflect on life at something less than 4 miles an hour. It's a book which more than repays any attempt to read his handwriting - which is not so difficult once you get used to it. This is a book that I can particularly recommend to all those accustomed to travelling to many destinations at top speed and who may not be acquainted with the benefits and "the inevitability of gradualism"! ;)

In conclusion, I'd highly recommend this book for anybody wanting to keep a sketchbook journal of a trip. Those visiting places along this route will also get an insight into life outside a car and the rhythm of life which occurs when walking everyday on a very long walk.

"The illustrations have a wonderful vividness and the text has a gentle undercurrent of humour.......It's the kind of book that you can pick up time after time and feel yourself wandering through the byways of France and Italy, hearing the sounds and smelling the fragrance of the hedgerows and fields around and about, or imagining yourself sitting outside in a village square enjoying a glass of wine" Sir Chris Bonington

NOTE: In future: the new revamped version of this blog will contain reviews of various books relevant to individuals travelling with a sketchbook. I'm anticipating this will include: