Post on Urban Sketchers blog about my recent trip to Venice

http://www.urbansketchers.org/2014/11/urban-sketching-in-venice_22.html

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

London urban sketches

I have just spent a couple of days in London and wanted to share my sketches. The first one of Borough Market was sketched at dusk on Thursday evening and then the view from my hotel room was just so complex and busily urban, I wanted to capture it in a sketch rather than photograph. Yesterday walking along the Southbank, I spent an hour (I gave myself a fixed time) on an unseasonably bitterly cold afternoon, to complete a pretty challenging view from St Paul's round to Tate Modern. Lots of urban clutter and bold splashes of colour make for an exciting urban sketch!

Recent sketches of railway stations

I find myself drawn to sketching railway stations, maybe it's the thrill of being on the move to somewhere else - often in my case crossing the country to Cornwall, or perhaps it's all that perspective! Platforms, columns, signage, trains (of course!) all receeding into the distance. And people, lots of them. Bags, cases, seating, lighting. A whole medley of urban clutter to capture in a few minutes whilst waiting for my train. 

Here are 3 recent sketches:

Birmingham New Street Station...arguably the most cluttered UK station of all.

Como Station (for Lake Como), in the beautiful Italian spring sunshine.

And Crewe, Cheshire, such complicated roof structure makes for an intoxicating perspective sketch.

Urban Sketchers Symoposium

I am thrilled to be attending the Urban Sketchers Symposium in fabulous Barcelona in July, which sold out in less than 2 hours. Luckily I was working at home on Monday so planned my time to be ready when registration went live Monday 1pm GMT. Not only that, I have enrolled on workshops with some of my favorite urban sketchers including Tia Boon Sim and Luis Ruiz. It promises to be an overwhelmingly creative few days and I can't wait to completely immerse myself in an urban sketch-fest!

I am now an official USK member for Manchester and you can find me on the global blogroll http://www.urbansketchers.org/p/usk-members.html

Here's my most recent urban sketch. All Saint's Gardens, Manchester on a freezing cold March afternoon, a couple of weeks back. Sketch is so loose because I couldn't feel my fingers! It took about 20 minutes including splashes of watercolour.

All Saints Gardens, Manchester

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.