Sunday, April 08, 2007

Travels with a sketchbook in London: a summary

This is a summary of all the sketches on this blog which relate to London. I'll update it at the end of every month if I've posted sketches relating to London in that month. A link to this summary is included in the 'trip summary section' in the right hand column.

St Paul's Cathedral from Tate Modern
8" x 10"pencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Recent sketches in London can see seen either in the list of posts relating to the current month in the archive or by clicking on the category 'London'.

[Amended August 2007] The sketches are grouped first according to the area of London and as stated in the description beneath each area (rather than the date they were first posted as I'm still transferring sketches to this blog from my main blog).

Central London

This section contains sketches of places in the City of London and central London and of areas along and immediately north and south of the River Thames east of Tate Britain and west of Tower Bridge - including Bankside in Southwark. The order below is east to west rather than date order. [Section summary added September 2007]
 
Pool of London / East London / Greenwich

This section follows the Thames upstream from the Olympic site around the Bow Back Rivers to Tower Bridge and the Pool of London.  It covers areas either side - Spitalfields, the East End, Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf (the new financial centre) to the North and Rotherhithe to the south. Again the order is from East to West. [Section summary added September 2007]
Greenwich

This section is views of Greenwich or from Greenwich. Posts are not in date order.


West London and Kew Gardens

West London is defined as anything which comes with the area known as Greater London which is west of Tate Britain and Vauxhall Bridge. [Section summary added September 2007]
Reference Books - Book Reviews

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Good Friday at Kew Gardens

The Palm House, Kew Gardens
pencil and coloured pencils in Daler Rowney sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

We're having good weather in London at the moment and so we decided to spend yesterday - Good Friday - at Kew Gardens. Everything is bursting out of the ground, the daffodils are virtually over but the spring borders are showing off although not everything is out yet. I had fun photographing tulips, magnolias and the blossom from some varieties of prunus. I was looking forward to 'The Cherry Walk' next to the Temperate House but sadly this had no blossom display at all although the trees are in bud and sitting in the midst of a carpet of blue scilla.

The first sketch is of the Palm House - which was eyeballed. Well I did hold up my pencil about three times to check angles to the horizontal. The trickiest bit was getting it to look like glass with palm trees inside at the same time as making it a darker value than the sky which was a very pale blue with lots of vapour trails from all the aircraft coming into land at Heathrow.

Syon Reach
pencil and Van Gogh watercolour pencils in Daler Rowney sketchbook

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The next one is of Syon Reach - the River Thames next to the view over to Syon House - except the latter is over to the right out of picture. I was messing around trying to work out relative sizes of people for if I were to work this up and populate it. I've got a nice mini sketch of 'he who must not be bored while I sketch' who was deep in his biography of Attlee sat on a bench in the sun in front of me! I used my Van Gogh watercolour pencils for this one and my Japanese waterbrush. The paper buckled like mad to start with and then settled down as it dried. I also worked the watercolour pencils and pencil back into the damp paper.

This spot has been used by lots of artists to sketch and draw and paint the view. One of the most recent was Kurt Jackson (Happy Easter Viv!) - with his painting "A Sunny Morning by Kew....". I also did it last year in a post on Making a Mark" which I shall reproduce tomorrow.

Links: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

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Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Byfield and Binney: London Sketchbook

Hardcover with colour, pencil and pen and ink illustrations.
96 pages. 10" × 11¼"(25 cm × 29 cm).
ISBN 981406811X; ISBN-13 978-9814068116.


Last year I bought London Sketchbook: A City Observed (Sketchbook) with watercolour paintings by artist Graham Byfield and text by architecural writer and conservationist Marcus Binney.

I'd previously acquired the Venice Sketchbook, in the same series, and had found it tremendously helpful when I was trying to locate different places worth drawing or painting prior to visiting Venice in 2005. I was naturally intrigued to see what sort of places had been selected for sketching on my home turf - London.
"When a man is tired of London he is tired of life......"
"Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists."
Boswell: Life" Doctor Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)
The "London Sketchbook" book has great coverage of all manner of interesting places worth seeing - and sketching - in London. I recommend this book to both
  • people who live in London - there's so much we take for granted! This book helps you to understand better the landmarks you know and where to look for places you've never seen before
  • people visiting London, whether or not you've ever visited before, and
  • artists wanting to sketch, draw or paint London.

The overall approach favoured by the book is to divide the book into sections based on areas - Central London, The City and East End, West London, North London and South of the River. Whole pages devoted to one view alternate with groupings of vignette sketches. This approach enables 150 watercolour paintings and pencil drawings to be included on a total of 96 pages and provides a good sense of place - as well as identifying the opportunities for sketching in an area.

Byfield's pencil drawings with watercolour added selectively are charming. He not only paints the large and better known buildings, he also focuses on less well known buildings and streets and some interesting architectural details. Each individual drawing/painting is also accompanied by a handwritten short commentary by Byfield on each individual painting.

However, it's now some 6 years since the book was published and some of the sketches involving skyline are now a little dated. For example, Byfield's panoramic views of the City of London from the top of Greenwich Park were rather fine - but were obviously executed pre-Gherkin.

Quite a lot of his subject matter is not easy to do quickly or without some reasonable grasp of perspective and architectural drawing. However, his vignettes of individual buildings and parts of buildings are well within the grasp of a lot of sketchers.

I found I had already drawn some of the things in his book. I'm not surprised his drawing of the interior of St Pauls Cathedral has no colour as you are very limited as to what can be taken inside the cathedral to draw. And I'm wondering what size paper he used as that interior is a BIG CHALLENGE! It took me ages. (You can see my various versions in the "Drawing the Bigger Inner Space" Gallery on my website.)

Binney provides an excellent overview at the beginning of the development of this capital city and its heritage in terms of the different architectural styles found around London. He also introduces the chapter for each area and says something about the places, the architecture and the historical associations of the places featured. He identifies the contrasts and challenges of architectural development over time at the same time as highlighting the conservation triumphs - such as Covent Garden Market. His knowledge is such that even if you've seen a place many times, the chances are you'll learn something new.

A more technical gazetteer at the end, again written by Binney, provides more detailed information about the age and background of each building.

I was absolutely fascinated to find that I'd seen most of the buildings included in the book at one time or another (maybe I've lived here too long?!) - but I didn't know that the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth is housed in the former Bethlehem Mental Hospital or that Constable used to live in a house in Well Walk in Hampstead!

Overall, rather than being a facsimile sketchbook with sketches done on the spot presented in timeline order, this is book which has been is compiled from various different sketches done at different times. The sketches are then presented in such a way as to make an attractive book.

Personally, I'd have liked to have seen at least a page devoted to equipment and approach to getting the sketches done. It did make me wonder just how many of the sketches were done 'plein air' and on the spot and how many were done from photographs.

Further reviews of books of interest to sketchbook artists can be found in the right hand column.

Notes:

  • Graham Byfield is a forner graphic artist and creative director in advertising. He is now a full-time artist with his own gallery in Menorca, Spain.
  • Marcus Binney OBE is the founder and president of Save Britain's Heritage, the Chairman of Save Europe's Heritage and the architectural correspondent at The Times; he received his OBE in 1983 and the London Conservation Medal in 1985.
  • A shorter review first appeared in 'Making a Mark' on 29th May 2006

Links:

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