London Urban Sketchers at Canary Wharf - 16 January 2016

On Saturday I led the London Urban Sketchers Group's visit to Canary Wharf (see UPDATE: re Let's Draw Canary Wharf 16 January 2016

These are my sketches. I first took people to see the amazing sky garden at Crossrail Place where the vegetation has really bedded down since it opened last May.

This was my first sketch of the day

My first sketch was of Poplar DLR Station - from a distance

Sketched through one of the holes in the roof of Crossrail Place

I then turned my attention to the sky garden

I drew in pen and ink on the spot
- and added some colour when I got back home

Dicksonia Antartica at Crossrail Place in Canary Wharf

 - it was just above freezing on the day and I was greatly amused by the name of the tree ferns!

We shared our sketches at lunchtime in Jubilee Place - the warmth was much appreciated

London Urban Sketchers - lunchtime at Jubilee Place undergound shopping mall

This is when I discovered there was a sketch of me sketching my first sketch!

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 at the exhibition for the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2015

My book has a section on sketching in Art Galleries and Museums (pages 102-103 of my book Sketching 365) - and that's because this is an activity I love to do!

6 Tips about sketching in Art Galleries and Museums
from Sketching 365

This is a photograph of the sketch I did on Monday of the people visiting the Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition on its first day open to the public at the Mall Galleries.

Sketch of visitors to exhibition for the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition
at the Mall Galleries 14-19 September 2015

I did it very fast - while I drank my cup of tea! It was done in my usual Moleskine sketchbook using a Pilot G-Tec-C 0.25 Hyper Fine Gel Rollerball Pen which delivers a 0.13mm line - which you can also see in the photograph.  

This one had brown ink which gives a much less 'in your face" line when compared to black ink. Turner liked brown ink as well! (see Review of Ruskin's Turners at the Fitzwilliam Museum).

I'm not using watercolour because the ordinary Moleskine sketchbook absolutely detests watercolour!

You can read my review of the exhibition for the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2015 in Review: Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2015 on Making A Mark