7th annual Urban Sketchers Symposium is coming to Manchester!

I am delighted to confirm the 2016 International Urban Sketchers Symposium will be held in Manchester, UK 27th-30th July 2016. The symposium is an annual educational and networking event organised by Urban Sketchers, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to fostering the practice of on-location drawing. Sketchers of all levels, experience, and backgrounds are welcome. Join our Facebook group to discuss USk Manchester 2016. Any advice you need about travel arrangements, hotels etc - just ask in the group or contact me directly as I am the local organiser and was responsible for the successful bid to host the event in Manchester https://www.facebook.com/groups/1633806703541999/ I hope we get to welcome you to our fabulous city next July!

Urban Sketchers Manchester draw at Chorlton's Big Green Happening

Urban Sketchers Manchester were invited to sketch at the 'Big Green Happening' festival in Manchester yesterday. It was at St Clement's church, which is in Chorlton - a leafy cosmopolitan south Manchester suburb, and the event was about promoting sustainability and a greener way of life. Lots of really interesting eco-businness in attendance including quirky craft stalls, delicatessens, vegan food, craft beer, organic wines, bicycle repairs and ethical fashion…and as the website says the event was promoting...'campaigners, makers, doers, growers, educators and builders'. It was a really friendly family orientated event...how nice on a lovely spring afternoon which was perfect urban sketching weather! 

Here's my drawing from the afternoon (too much talking...much of it about urban sketching rather than drawing in my case!) and also a photograph of us with our finished drawings in the sunshine.

Urban Sketchers Manchester next meeting

Sketching at Manchester International Festival's Festival Village

Two sketches and a photograph of me painting (taken by the very lovely Mr Len Grant). The first sketch was done at an RIBA 'Love Architecture' urban sketching workshop that I ran a couple of weeks back. Great turn out and much enthusiasm for urban sketching!

Urban sketching in Castlefield, Manchester

At last...a perfect afternoon for urban sketching. Here we are, the Manchester Urban Sketching group happy in the Manchester sunshine! We're in Castlefield, a historic and Victorian city centre regeneration area on a sunny Sunday afternoon in June. My sketch is of the Bridgewater canal basin, I really enjoy drawing narrow boats; my father had a boat on the Bridgewater canal for years, and I spent much of my adolescent years messing around on boats and canals. Quite a loose sketch, another instance of not having enough time, but enlivened with bright splashes of colour. Deansgate Chapel and the iconic Beetham Tower in the distance. Great output, some lovely work!

Manchester Urban Sketching group

Bridgewater canal basin, Manchester

Collected work from Manchester Urban Sketching group

Shudehill Transport Interchange, Manchester

Another complex urban sketch....so much to capture and so little time! Couldn't settle on a view and ran out of time, part view of tram platform with Shudehill car park and iconic Co-operative CIS Tower behind. Out sketching with Manchester Urban Sketching Group last Wednesday afternooon. Small turn out but some lovely work produced.

Shudehill Transport Interchange

Group session sketches

Coffee shop sketch...(Cafe Nero, Didsbury)

I keep telling prospective students in interviews that they should sketch more and refer them to the Urban Sketchers website. I suggest that if they are offered a place on our course, then over the summer when 'A' Levels are done, and there's just the long wait for the results, that they buy a Moleskin pocket sketch book and spend time drawing the world around them. And, where better to start than in a coffee shop...I always suggest. So I finally took my own advice! This is Cafe Nero, Didsbury. It's a busy view but I have restricted the watercolour palette and picked out highlights in cerulean blue and bright red. This sketch was done yesterday afternoon and took just under an hour and a half.

Manchester Urban Sketchers group January 2013

It's our first event of the new year tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it. We're sketching around the MMU campus and I have a particular (and quite complicated) Manchester skyline view in mind. I'll report back on progress shortly!

Albert's Chop House, Manchester

This is my final urban sketch from our group sessions this year. It's of the Memorial Hall, Albert Square, Manchester - remembered by Mancunians more fondly as the Square Albert (pub). Recently and beautifully refurbished by architects Ombler Iwanowski, and now Albert's Chop House - companion to the celebrated Sam's and Mr Thomas' Chop Houses. A welcome addition to Manchester hostelries, but I digress! Because it was so bitterly cold, I sat indoors, in the adjacent Slug and Lettuce and drew what I could see through the window. The sketch took about an hour, maybe just over. I wanted to make it quite jolly with splashes of bright watercolour - Tampopo's red signage and blue signposts. You can see the window frames and brick arches I am looking through.

In case this is my last post of 2012, and that depends very much on wi-fi in Cornwall...I make the long trip south tomorrow to Rock, near Padstow. To anyone reading this, I wish you all the very best for the new year, and hope you are having a lovely festive break.

Couple of quick Manchester views

Drawn quickly whilst out urban sketching. Both took about 20 minutes including watercolour. Any Manchester people reading this, hopefully should recognise the views..?

Manchester School of Art Urban Sketching Group Event No2

Poster for next week's urban sketching event

Urban sketching in Didsbury Village, Manchester

Last Friday I wasn't at work, so in the afternoon walked down to the village to do a bit of 'urban sketching'. It was a particularly mild autumn afternoon so I based myself outside Cafe Nero with a large americano coffee to keep me warm. This is the sketch I produced over an hour and a half. I am quite pleased with it but think I need to draw quicker and be less fussy with some of the detail. A combination of approaching dusk and a sudden chill in the air, bought my enthusiastic sketching to an end for the day!

Sketches from our first urban Sketching event

For a couple of hours on Wednesday afternoon, I completed the following views. The first took about an hour and 15 minutes and the second view, slightly unfinished, just over half an hour. I was pleased with my progress and my ability for the first time in ages, to completely absorb myself in simply drawing...or urban sketching, I should say.

The first first view is from All Saints Gardens looking towards the Manchester School of Art with Chatham Tower behind and the second view is also from All Saints looking towards St. Augustine's Catholic church with the new MMU Business School behind.

All Saints looking towards Manchester School of Art with Chatham Tower behind

All Saints Gardens looking towards St Augustine's Church

Manchester School of Art Urban Sketching Group

We're on our way! Our first sketching afternoon is arranged for next Wednesday afternoon in the new MMU Business School building and I am delighted Caroline Johnson USK correspondent for Manchester and Rennes is joining us for the afternoon. I am really looking forward to meeting her...I think we will all be very inspired!

We now have a facebook group and over 50 people have signed up already....do join us. The intention is to apply for official Urban Sketching Group status early 2013 and then we'd be a Manchester, not just School of Art group.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/321316664634124/

Here is a link to Caroline's work:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33087681@N03/

Urban Sketchers 1

I am a big fan of Urban Sketchers and have been plotting over the last few months about trying to establish a Manchester group. This really started to take shape whilst in Singapore over the summer when I met Mdm Tia Boon Sim, one of the group's founding directors. I was invited to a private view which displayed work from a recent sketching weekend in Penang, Malyasia, and I was delighted to meet a number of Singapore Urban Sketchers. Needless to say their work was beautiful and made me even more determind to get involved with something similar back home. London recently started a group and so far Manchester doesn't appear to have one, but watch this space...

One of Mdm Tia's urban sketches

At the private view in a Singapore Tea House

Some of the work on display

Albert Square, Manchester

Two architectural paintings of the same view, one preparatory and one more detailed. Both watercolour and pencil. The view is from Clarence Street looking into Albert Square, Manchester and shows the Christmas Market. Painted 2010.

 

ManchesterInArt exhibition

I am delighted to be one of the artists in VenturesInArt's 'ManchesterInArt' exhibition, at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, Piccadilly Place. I have five Manchester city views on display and they are available to buy online via VenturesInArt's website. The exhibition is an interesting mix of original artwork with over 70 paintings and photographs by 18 local artists. Definitely worth a visit and runs until January 2013.


ManchesterInArt website
ManchesterInArt Simone Ridyard

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Manchester skyline watercolour (reworked 2012)