Sheaf Park Festival SketchCrawl

We had a great time SketchCrawling at the Sheaf Park Festival. You can read all about it on the main blog, but here are some more of my sketches from the day. We met at the station at 10.15, but the festival didn't kick off until lunchtime, so we sat in the sunshine and sketched the people milling about on the station's forecourt:

By chance there was a troupe or Morris Dancers there, who wore really crazy costumes and danced while waiting for their train:

This was the 'Grow Sheffield' stand at the festival, where they had a huge apple press. The apple juice they made was delicious:

There was a corner where someone was showing children how to make scarecrows from tree branches:

There were several live bands for us to draw:

There was also a dogshow:

A really fun day! If you live within travelling distance of Sheffield and would like to come along on any future Sketchcrawls, just email me.

Urban Sketchers Symposium: Friends

As always, while we were away, I found myself as much attracted to the people as to our surroundings. I drew lots of locals but, like many of my fellow sketchers, I also drew us.

I'm so glad I captured so many of my sketch-buddies and new friends, as I remember them so fondly - Santo Domingo was fantastic, but it was the electricity we created between us that for me was the true magic of the symposium.

We were gathered together in groups at lunchtime and in the evening, and that's when most of these happened. When I'm sketching someone, I don't set out to draw a portrait as such - there's nothing as boring or as stressful as worrying about capturing a likeness. 

Sometimes I capture people nevertheless, which is great, but my main aim is to achieve an interesting drawing with the flavour of the person. 

From the top Liz Steel, Lapin, Gabi Campanario, Shiho Nakaza, Alanna Randall, Elizabeth Alley, Chris Ruiz-Velasco.

Chesterfield SketchCrawl

These are some more of the sketches I did during our SketchCrawl in Chesterfield. Though it's only 15 minutes away on the train, I'd never actually visited Chesterfield, and so really enjoyed the day.

We started off at the famous landmark, the one which puts Chesterfield on the map:

Because we were so lucky with the weather, we spent a lot of time sitting on the grass around the church, either drawing parts of the building, the trees, or each other. 

In the afternoon, we went the market, which was great fun. I loved listening to the traditional market callers. I sketched various characters, who were sitting on the benches or manning the stalls. 

It was so hot though, I couldn't sit in the sun, so there were lots of people I couldn't tackle. 

I had two goes at the spire - it was trickier than it looked and a bit of a neck-breaker!

I finished off with this wonderfully knobbly tree, then we celebrated a fantastic day by going to the pub to look at our work. You can see some more of my sketches from the day here and a selection of other people's here.

Drawing People on the Train Home From the SketchCrawl

On Saturday SketchCrawl North met up for a day of sketching at the Imperial War Museum in Manchester. On the way home, I took my sketchbook out again. 

We took the tram from the quay back to Manchester Piccadilly, then the train back to Sheffield:

John, as usual fell asleep before we got hom. I have so many sketches of him in this or similar positions!

You can see all the sketches I did at the museum here. Other people's work, plus details of all future events are posted on Sketchcrawl North's Facebook page.


If you are interested in sketching people in public places, you might be interested in this post with all my best hot tips!

Sheffield Folk Festival: SketchJamming

Here are a few of the sketches I did at The Shakespeare pub, SketchJamming with Les, during the Sheffield Folk Festival.

Everyone was so incredibly friendly and very interested to see how they had turned out in the sketches. The smiling man above invited us to be Artists-in-Residence at another folk festival that he organises in September!

I really enjoy sketching to music: it really seems to help the creative process. Folk music works well too, as at least some of the musicians stay pretty still, so you're in with a chance!