Trees at Tate Modern

Yellow Silver Birches and the Thames (at Tate Modern)

8.5" x 11.5", pencil and coloured pencil in Daler Rowney sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Yesterday, after I heard Cin's news (see end of story), I had that 'there's no time to lose' feeling - and saw three exhibitions in one day, sketched the Thames from both sides of the river and finished up buying some books about Edward Seago. Keeping busy also seems to help when you have very sad news.

I remember watching Melvyn Bragg's amazing interview with an incredibly lucid and articulate Dennis Potter just before Potter died of cancer of the liver/pancreas. He was swigging morphine for the pain, announcing he had christened his tumour Rupert (after Rupert Murdoch who he detested) and talked about his plays and how he was was in a rush to make sure he could finish his last plays.

He also described how his senses were heightened by the news that he didn't have long left and how he was finding he noticed things in a completely new way. I'll never forget how he described the blossom which he saw outside his window in Ross-on-Wye as being "...the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be".

I suspect the same thing happens to many people who know somebody who's dying or has just died. I know it always happens to me - and it's always about the visual.

Yesterday, I had lunch in the restaurant on the 7th floor of the Tate Modern. It has the most spectacular view of the City of London skyline.

As I looked out the window, my eye kept being drawn by the intense yellow leaves of the silver birches which are planted in serried ranks in the forecourt of the Tate.

The trees had been demanding to be noticed from the point when I'd sat on the other side of the Thames sketching. Having noticed the trees yet again, I had to try and draw the trees - and the wash from the boats which juxtaposed wonderful diagonal lines against the slim white trunks of the birches.

This is a drawing for Cin as she can't come and share the view right now.

[ UPDATE: Cindy Woods - learning daily (1956-2008) ]

Renaissance Faces - in my sketchbook

A Laughing Boy (Henry VIII) attributed to Georgio Mazzoni
11" x 8", pencil in sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I visited the Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian at the National Gallery last week and took my sketchbook and a pencil into the exhibition. The exhibition covers faces in paintings created in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This is the result.

The drawing at the top is of a gilded sculpture of what is called A Laughing Boy but is understood to be a cast of the young Henry VIII (one of those ones where they have to stick tubes up your nose). Quite how they managed the laughing mouth is beyond me. It's an impressive piece and was interesting to draw and make 3D into 2D.

LEFT: Saint Constance, called ‘The Beautiful Florentine’, about 1450–75

by the Circle of Desiderio da Settignano (about 1430–1464)
RIGHT: Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife by Jan Van Eyck 1434
pencil and coloured pencils in sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The piece above left is a wooden sculpture bust which normally lives in The Louvre. She's supposed to be an ideal of female beauty in the fifteenth century and is the starting point of the exhibition.

There are lots and lots of famous artists and famous paintings in the exhibition and one of them is Jan Van Eyck's painting of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife - painted in 1434. This is the painting which is sometimes referred to as the Arnolfini Marriage

I'll be writing about the exhibition of Making A Mark tomorrow [UPDATE: see Renaissance Faces at the National Gallery]

People watching and sketching - outside Tate Modern

Bankside people

8" x 10", pen and ink in Moleskine
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

A great place in London for watching and sketching people is the space just outside Tate Modern.

In the summer, if you sit on the ledge which runs between the silver birch borders you can face Tate Modern and sketch people sitting and lying on the grass between the museum and the Thames Path (see right)

Outside Tate Modern #1
(or what to draw in the summer
when life class is on holiday)
11" x 8"pen and ink
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

At other times of year you can sketch people sitting and standing on Thames Path (the 'Bankside' section) next to the River Thames (see above).

Plus if it rains you can always dive Tate Modern until it stops!

I like to focus on postures rather than features. It's all about how they distribute their weight.

I've summarised my other tips for sketching people in 10 Tips for How to Sketch People

I also like to write down 'odd things' that I hear people saying in my sketchbook. The statement in the bottom right hand corner of my recent sketch (at top) came from a young person with a mobile phone who walked past me. Obviously not everybody knows what's in that big building next to the Millenium Bridge!

Hello Hun, I'm in front of this big building with paintings on the wall
Overheard while sketching at Bankside

Hanging the Street Art exhibition, Tate Modern

(from the Millenium Bridge)
photo copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Links:

• Bankside
  
• Tate Modern - Street Art
  
• Making A Mark - 10 Tips for How to Sketch People