Sketch Crawl - Return to Durham City

St Mary the Less, Durham City

(markers in A5 sketchbook)

I was looking forward to the sketch crawl last Saturday, organised by Richard of the Urban Sketchers Tyne and Wear, because for one reason or another, I'd not been able to go to any sketch crawls since February. I had my usual reservations about the venue as I don't have too much interest in drawing the Cathedral or the Castle and it being a very busy city, it's often difficult to find a quiet space to stand (or sit) and draw. 

The Market Square, our original meeting place, turned out to be given over to a giant screen showing the Cricket World Cup from nearby Chester-le-Street. Imagine then, my dismay, to round the corner and see an enormous set of marquees on the Cathedral Green, set up for the University's Convocation Circus.

Urban Sketchers were lying on the grassopposite and some had evidently found things to draw, but I decided to take a walk down another lane, passing Allan who'd discovered a sheltered spot, until I came across a small church celebrating the unsurprisingly little known St Mary the Less. Sitting on a step to avoid the very hot sun, I found I had no view of the church itself, but straight opposite was an old gravestone and a large tree. A gravestone seemed an appropriate subject for the very last page in my sketchbook and the tree challenged me to find new marks for foliage. A broad black marker and a Tombow grey marker supplemented my usual 0.5 marker and really, I came away quite satisfied.

It was great to catch up with Anita, Kim and Bethan in the coffee shop, but disappointing to discover that half the group, including many new members I've yet to meet, were settled in another coffee shop across the river.

Two Months in Crete : Sketch - Down Balantinou

Down Balantinou

(Markers in 195x195 sketchbook)

Balantinou was one of the streets we used most often to walk into the Old Town. It was just round the corner from the apartment and skirted the Schiavo Bastion, built by the Venetians as part of the city fortifications.

On the left of this drawing is a ramp leading up to the top of the Bastion. For about a week after we arrived the ramp was closed off because of a landslide, but the demand from people wanting to get a view of the town from the top soon led to a dismantling of the fence; whether officially or not, who can say?

The landslide had fallen onto the road, which meant it was closed to traffic, so I was able to stand in the middle of the road to draw. In doing so, I was much safer than if I'd stood on the pavement, because that was being used by all the local motorcyclists in the absence of a road.

The taverna canopies belong to the Banana Garden and the blue dome in the background is on the top of the Roman Catholic Church.

Sketch Crawl : St Thomas's Church, Newcastle

George Cross Island Assoc. Window

(Black marker and coloured pencil in A5 sketchbook)

On Saturday, the Tyne & Wear Urban Sketchers met up in St Thomas's Church in the Haymarket. I was a little late in getting there and some of the sketchers were already thinking of moving on to McKenna's Cafe at Northern Stage. 

I'd never been in St Thom's before and was surprised at how small it seemed inside: bigger on the outside than inside, a sort of inverse Tardis.

Maybe because I've been painting figures recently, I was attracted to a stained glass window commemorating the Siege of Malta and sat down in a pew to draw part of it.

I was interested enough in the window to look it up online later. It was designed by Helen Whittaker of Barley Studio in York and it's interesting to note that Barley Studio were responsible for making and installing the new window in Westminster Abbey, designed by David Hockney.

St John Lee

St John Lee Churchyard
(0.5 Micron marker in A5 sketchbook)

Occasionally, the North of England Art Club organises a day out for members to do some drawing, painting, whatever. This used to happen a lot a few years ago but the main instigators have fallen by the wayside. Pity, because they used to be good fun. Still, here was one on Monday and off I went in a friend's car.

I've seen the road sign to "St John Lee" hundreds of times: it's on the roundabout on the main road just north of Hexham, but I knew nothing more than that.

It turned out to be a really nice little church tucked away in the depths of the country with a long hut nearby that they hire out for groups such as ours. By the time I got there, Ian was setting up his table outside to begin cooking sausages, so I wandered around the church and graveyard taking a few photographs until the sausage sandwiches were ready.

Two sausage sandwiches later, I was off into the graveyard to draw these headstones. The one in the foreground was an interesting lesson in the general impossibility of immortality. After the quite easily read inscription of ERECTED IN MEMORY OF, the stone had almost completely eroded away and the details of the person were pretty much indecipherable.

Just as I finished the drawing, the call came for cups of tea, lemon drizzle and Victoria sponge cakes. Sometimes food can be a great distraction to the struggling artist, so no more drawing was done. 

But here's a photograph of a stone with Neolithic cup and ring marks I found just inside the door of the church.

Sketch Crawl # 9 : Holy Trinity Church, Jesmond, and the Dene

Churchill Gardens, Jesmond
(0.8 marker over two pages of A4 sketchbook)

I had a new pencil case (or at least an old one with some new pencils and markers in it) and the weather forecast was for sun all day, even if cold, so off I went on Saturday to Jesmond to meet up with the Sketch Crawlers at Holy Trinity Church.

Richard had the keys to the church and the interior was nice and warm. Outside as always, Mike was across the road drawing the church and new member Jenny was sitting on the church wall drawing from an unusual angle. Janet arrived as I got there and we had a bit of a shufty round the interior.

A sudden flurry of activity announced the arrival in the church of Mike and Jenny, shaking off some unexpected rain and everyone started to draw bits and pieces: windows, microphones, fonts ... But my eye had been taken with a building opposite the church and from the shelter of the doorway I was able to get this drawing of Churchill Gardens done. Actually, the rain soon passed and Anita, another new member appeared, having taken a peculiarly circuitous route from the Metro station.

By the time I'd finished my drawing of the end of Churchill Gardens, the sun was warm and bright and the others had gone round the corner to Pets Corner in Jesmond Dene. I joined them but found the animals annoyingly mobile. Mike showed how good he was at capturing the  likeness of various chickens and ducks, but I couldn't get to grips with all that movement.

Finally, I decided I'd go for the chicken coops and maybe include a hen if it would stay still long enough. As it happened, the hens all buggered off once I'd started and none appeared in the whole time I was drawing. Just as pleased, really.

Chicken Coops, Pets Corner, Jesmond Dene
(0.8 marker and Pentel Brush Pen in A4 sketchbook)

Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh

Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm)

Unravelling a bit of string, I left the darkened corridor last night to see if I might get at least one new painting finished this year. I knew this Edinburgh churchyard painting could be brought to a conclusion very easily; all it needed was the addition of some grave markers and crosses and a bit work on the tops of walls. 

I didn't much enjoy the experience of painting while wearing my near distance specs, but later it occurred to me that, given the small size of the painting, I might have been better off using my reading glasses.

Following the string back along the dark corridor, I'm standing here, finger tips on the wall, musing on the quaint Chinese method of making the stretcher on which this picture is completed. It has three sides 30cm long and one, 12 inches long. An interesting problem for my framer.

A Little More Cathedral

Cathedral (work in progress)

I've been struggling recently to get any painting done, partly because of some kind of existential angst - what am I painting for? However, I did drop into the Art Club last week and move this painting of the Cathedral and Black Gate along somewhat.

The buildings are working out OK, I think. I can now turn my attention to the top third, defining the town in the distance a little, and then settling the sky.

Cathedral Work

Cathedral (work in progress)

Back to the Club on Friday to spend a short time working on the Cathedral painting. The foreground is coming along, but the more distant view will take some time to get right, I think.

[And as an aside, can I just say how irritating I find the new Blogger posting system  It wasn't broke; it didn't need fixing.]

Hot Cathedral

Cathedral (work in progress)

I had some good news today which made me want to get on with some fresh painting. So it was back to the Art Club where I set about painting what seems to be a view of Newcastle-en-Provence but is in fact St Nicholas's Cathedral in Newcastle upon Tyne. A good start on what was actually a very wet day.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh Churchyard (work in progress)

Sorry for the pause in blogging. Pat and I went to Edinburgh at the beginning of the month and I came back with a three-week cold. Writing came a poor third on my list of priorities, after coughing and wiping my nose. And painting stalled altogether until yesterday.

The trip to Edinburgh was a birthday present from Pat and timed to coincide with the exhibition of FCB "Bunty" Cadell's work at the National Galleries of Scotland. A wonderful show! Not a poor picture in the whole collection; his work during the 1920s was particularly exciting yet at the time he didn't find much commercial success with it.

We also paid two visits to the Open Eye Gallery to look at Kirsty Wither's new work. Previously known for her figure paintings and flower still lifes (both of which were represented here), she's recently turned her hand to landscapes and I thought these were really successful. Lovely subtle passages of colour laid on with a painting knife, with some of it scraped through. Gorgeous.

The cold started to show up on the last day in Edinburgh and by the time I was home I was ready to vegetate. But by yesterday I felt I should make the effort to get working again, so went off to the Art Club. Inevitably, the last person there was just about to leave as I arrived, so I spent the afternoon in splendid isolation, working on this small painting which you may remember from its last appearance in August.

I think I still have reservations about the lighting in the studio at the new Club premises. It's a combination of natural light diffused through ceiling panels together with some strip lighting. On an overcast day like yesterday the light coming through the diffusion panels seems poor and I was uncertain of my tones while painting. As a consequence, this painting looks different when photographed in the Club's common room, where the light comes through big windows, than it did in the studio.

Starting up again

Edinburgh Churchyard (work in progress)

After a week of sitting on my laurels, last Friday I began another Edinburgh painting, only to have to leave it to go to a private view at the wonderful Art Noveau offices of Opus Art in Newcastle. And what an interesting evening that turned out to be! I'd been invited to the opening because April Jarocka had some of her lovely paintings of chocolate bars included in the show, but she hadn't told me she'd be there herself. What a delight, and a somewhat surreal one at that, to finally meet someone I've only known through emails and websites.

On Saturday, Pat and I went to Edinburgh again, this time for the private view of the Festival Exhibition at the Di Rollo Gallery. It was a good opening, with a decent flow of people in and out (including a science fiction fan I've somehow never managed meet in my 45 years of involvement in the field), but the weather turned inclement and I think that made the supply of people eventually dry up.

No sales on the day.

Pat and I decided to go for lunch in Stockbridge and then wander along Princes Street, but as the rain became heavier we were starting to feel not a little damp and uncomfortable. Back on the late afternoon train, we found the rain had been even heavier in Newcastle. I do so love a British summer.

Auchterarder: 4th Day

St Serf's, Dunning (Pencil, watercolour, A4 sketchbook)

We split into the same two groups again today (something of an unwelcome practice, I think), and we three went into Auchterarder for groceries, then investigated two pubs in the area in the only sensible way - a pint in each.

Across from the Kirkstyle Inn (good pint of Thrappledouser) is St Serf's Church and a man there will come out of his little hut to tell you more than you thought you might possibly want to know about this lovely old building. He's a treasure, absolutely wasted there, but perhaps quite content.

Anyway, he encourages artists to paint and draw in and around the church, so we sat down in the churchyard, in the glorious sunshine, and I produced this small effort. I've said before, I'm no watercolourist, but it does come in handy for "colouring in".