Sketch Crawl - The Hancock Museum and McKenna's Cafe

Bardon Mike @ McKenna's

(Pitt fine marker in A5 sketchbook)

Saturday dawned grey and snowy, Michael was sensibly in bed with a cold, but I braved the chill wind and met the other members of Urban Sketchers Tyne and Wear huddling in the entrance to Haymarket Metro.

The plan had been to draw in and around the campus of Newcastle University but the weather made that deeply unattractive, so we opted instead for a return to the Great North Museum : Hancock. 

This would be our third visit to the Hancock and for me yet another chance to draw pots. Annoyingly, I discovered I'd left my pencil case at home, but found a pack of Pitt pens in the bottom of my bag.

Attic Amphora and Funerary Pots

(Pitt fine marker in A4 sketchbook)

Cypriot Jug with Sphinxes c 600 BC

(Pitt marker in A4 sketchbook)

Sadly, the Hancock has a policy of closing its cafe at 3.30 so while some of us managed to snatch a coffee and a scone before they closed, Richard was reduced to drinking my little jug of milk. 

In need of further caffeine we upped sticks and moved to McKenna's Cafe, just across the road. There we were able to sit and watch the snow being blown around outside, draw the Students' Union Building or simply draw one another.

Unusually for me, I opted for the latter and Bardon Mike, who'd joined us for the day from Berwick Sketchers, helpfully sat very still while I obsessed over the folds in his hoodie to such an extent that I can't help feeling he looks a little like a character drawn by Dürer (see top of post).

I thought the time round the table in McKenna's, laughing and sketching one another was a lovely way to round out the day and Kim even managed to get a photo of me smiling with Jenny (but then it was nice to see Jenny back with the group!).

(Photo: Kim Willis)

Next sketch crawl : 28th April, venue to be decided.

A Little More Acrylic

Three little canvases I'm working on today in the studio. All in acrylic, all 20 x 20 cm, all in various stages of completion. The first is an attempt to translate a drawing I made at the Hancock Museum into a painting, the second is the Bird Table painting I started yesterday and which I've worked on a little more, and the third is a rather hesitant start to a painting based on a sketch I did in Durham Market Place.

A rather disparate set of images, but useful in finding my way into acrylic painting, something I'm determined to do.

More Thinking Out Loud

The drawing of the ancient Attic Vessels I made at the Hancock Museum has been hanging about in my head for some time, so I decided to see what some colour courtesy of Photoshop would do to it. I like it, even if it's not complete. Completion would come if I choose to get the image down on canvas as a painting. And I think that's not far off.

This is the original drawing:

Sketch Crawl : The Hancock Museum (again)

Attic Vessels c.450 BC, Hancock Museum
(Broad and fine point markers, with grey brush pen in A4 sketchbook)

And so we get to it: our most recent Sketch Crawl. As I missed the one before that (at Arch Sixteen Cafe ), I've decided to stop numbering these Sketch Crawl posts.

On 10th December, there was a good turnout of North East Sketch Crawlers, although one or two had to cry off because of Xmas-related activities. The weather was OK, although the wind, as is often the case it seems, was icy cold.

This drawing is all I got done, but I'm really pleased with it. Someone online suggested that the wavy lines in the background ruin it and I'm not about to dismiss that. There was a blankness about the top third of the page that seemed to need something, so I added these lines from the mural that formed the back of the display case. Were I to make this into a painting (and I'm thinking seriously about it), I know I wouldn't include the wavy lines. Still, you make these decisions in the moment and have to live with them.

I've been looking at a lot of still life paintings recently, especially of the 20th Century Modernist sort and I think it shows in this drawing. Another person online pointed out what a good subject it was for practising drawing ellipses. She was right, of course, but in this case it served as an opportunity for me to wilfully make the ellipses irregular. I seem to remember reading many years ago that Japanese master potters, probably including Hamada, would turn a perfect pot on the wheel and then at the last moment, slightly tip it sideways. They recognised that perfection is boring and that the eye is intrigued by its perception of something that is not quite right. For that reason I made sure that, while I really do assure you I can draw a pretty good ellipse, these ones would not be perfect. I even drew them out in pencil first (something I normally don't do with these Sketch Crawl drawings), just to make sure they were wrong, before inking them.

While we were drawing in the Museum we were entertained by a brass band, a choir, the Newcastle University Wind Band, and finally by Heaton Voices. As my wife Pat sings in this community choir, it seemed only right that I hang on for their performance though I didn't try to sketch them, unlike some of the other Sketch Crawlers.

Our plan had been to move on to the Laing Art Gallery but by the time we'd listened to the music, shown appreciative choir members sketches of themselves and shuffled though the Xmas crowds in Northumberland Street, it was a bit late to think about doing that. Instead we investigated a building that contained almost nothing but a staircase, ending up on the top floor of The Botanist which was packed. Who could have predicted a bar and restaurant would be full of people on a Saturday afternoon two weeks before Xmas?

In desperate need of coffee and cake we crossed the road to the new food quarter of Eldon Square and settled on stools round a table in TGI Friday's. In deference to Anita's sensitivities, I'll gloss over details of the lukewarm coffee, my American style muffin decorated with cold fried onions (just wrong!), Anita's half-eaten cowpat brownie, her several pots of stewed tea and her eventual face-off with the manager of TGI Friday's. It was all very ... interesting and festive.

Next time: 21st January 2017, possibly at the Lit & Phil. 

Sketch Crawl # 4 : Hancock Museum

Heads (Pitt marker in A4 sketchbook)


















Greek Plate (Pitt marker in A4 sketchbook)

On Saturday, the fourth of the current season of Sketch Crawls was indoors as the weather deteriorates. The newly modernised Hancock Museum clearly does what it's meant to do - engage the attention of young children - but I was a little disappointed to find all the old gloomy galleries gone. 

As the galleries themselves had always been my interest in the museum, I now had to simply wander round the cases (with my Museum Sketchbook) drawing a selection of heads and a Greek plate. OK, but not as interesting as a building, either inside or out. I suppose one or two of them might make their way into a still life one day.

Some of our Sketch Crawlers did at least find a comfy bench to sit and draw, but my camera decided to autofocus on the furry thing in the foreground instead of the sketchers!

If I could have found a decent place to sit or even stand without fear of being trampled by running children, I'd have liked to do something with the T. Rex, but 'twas not to be. 

While I was drawing the Polynesian mask, a little Chinese girl looked up at me and asked. "Are you an artist?" She seemed to be quite overawed when I answered, "Yes."

Sketch Crawl Time again

Old Hancock Museum: Relic Case
(Charcoal and compressed charcoal across two pages of A4 sketchbook)

For those who might tune in here to find out news of Sketch Crawls in the north east (Unlikely, I know, but I live in hope of making contact with this blog), we have another Sketch Crawl coming up for those tempted.

This time  we'll be drawing at The Hancock Museum, Newcastle on Saturday 24th October and those interested should turn up from 1.00-1.30pm. Draw inside or outside the building, as the fancy takes you.

This one is timed to coincide with World Wide SketchCrawl 49.

Hope to see some new sketchers there.

Sketch Crawl #3 : Tynemouth

Collingwood Cannon, Tynemouth
(Pitt markers, Japanese brush pens in A4 sketchbook)

It looked grey and cold on Saturday morning and even though the forecast showed some sunshine at the Coast I decided on wearing a fleece. Boy, was I glad I did when I got to Tynemouth for my third sketch crawl. It was one of those sunny days where the constant wind makes it bitterly cold.

I'd made some error in my travelling calculations and got to Tynemouth Metro Station about half an hour later than I'd planned, so everyone was busy with their sketching and I had to hunt them out. Not an easy job, because I'd completely forgotten that on Saturday there's a market held in the station and the place was heaving:

It was somewhat overwhelming and rather than try to sort out something to draw, I made a quick tour of the station, photographing my fellow sketch crawlers for posterity:

Allan                                    Barbara

Katie



Michael

Richard

With something like fifteen minutes to spare before we moved off, I took out my A5 sketchbook and stood on the pedestrian bridge, having a go at capturing some of the people milling about below. No one - even the man who'd been standing stock still at his stall and who'd therefore encouraged me to try this - remained in one place or position for more than thirty seconds. I'd look up and the person I'd started to draw had morphed into someone else, so the old woman with the anorak exchanged her trousers for a long skirt. No men suffered this indignity, but another woman found the dog she'd been leading on a bit of string had turned into a rabbit.

Tynemouth Market people
(Pitt medium marker in A5 sketchbook)

After that it was off into town to find somewhere to draw that didn't involve being blown away. Pretty impossible, as I discovered when I tried to find shelter in a valley near the Collingwood Monument. Finally accepting that the wind would blow wherever I stood, I took up position on the steps of the Monument and drew part of one of the cannons (see above).

Although there was about half an hour left of the allotted drawing time, I headed back up the hill to Front Street and hung about outside Mr Woods coffee shop, waiting for the others to turn up. After a while I was joined by Barbara and we talked for a while in the partial shelter of a lamp post. After a further while, Michael came out of the coffee shop and apologised for having gone in soon along with the others. We joined them for a muffin and a coffee.

As well as passing round the day's accomplishments, we talked about how the summer (ha!) seemed to be coming to an end and we might have to find indoor locations for our sketch crawls. As it has previously, the possibility of sketching in Newcastle's Hancock Museum came up. We'll see ...