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.

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!

Basques and False Eyelashes!

We had a really fun time on Saturday, combining a SketchCrawl with a Dr Sketchy session recently - the first Dr Sketchy to take place here in Sheffield. 

You can read more about the event and what we got up to on my main blog post about the day, but here are some of the drawings I did that didn't fit on that post. As you can see - it was a bit more racy than the average SketchCrawl!

Salford SketchCrawl

This SketchCrawl was a bit different - it was linked to my exhibition at Salford Gallery. I did a bit of a talk in the morning, then the afternoon was given over to drawing. You can read more about the adventures of the day on my main blog, which is where you can see the sketches I did, but below are some photos of us in action.

Thank you so much to everyone for coming - it was lovely to meet you all. Hope to see you all at future SketchCrawling events!

Sept SketchCrawl: in the sculpture park

We had a great turn-out this time round. People always love the Yorkshire Sculpture Park!

My sketches are all on the main blog, but below is a small selection from some of the other sketchers who came to share the day. I think you'll agree, there was some fantastic work done! 

Sian Hughes:

Andrea Joseph:

Matthewl Midgley:

Thomas Forde:

Bryn Hughes:

A big thanks to everyone who turned up. I hope you'll come again. If you would like to join me on a future SketchCrawl, just drop me an email. We meet every month.

Sheffield Fayre - August's Sketchcrawl

This year's Sheffield Fayre featured battle re-enactments, so there were loads of people in costume from all eras for us to draw, from medieval archers through to relatively recent combat soldiers: 

You can see my sketchbook here and read more about the day on the main blog.

SketchCrawling

SketchCrawling is a really fun way to share your love of drawing: it turns a solitary activity into a group event! SketchCrawls are open to everyone, whatever their age or ability. 

There is no ‘teaching’: it is about the buzz you get from sketching alongside other people, inspiring and empowering one another. Anybody who enjoys keeping a sketchbook (or who fancies giving it a go, even for the very first time) is invited to take part. 

SketchCrawling provides an excellent opportunity to take those sketchbooks out into the world, as drawing among friends gives many people the confidence they need to sketch in public.

There are informal groups all over the UK (and all over the world), many of them aligned to the international sketching group Urban Sketchers. Our group is one of those, and is called Urban Sketchers Yorkshire. I organise a monthly, free SketchCrawl. We meet up at a pre-arranged venue, somewhere different each month, all over in the north of England. 

On a typical SketchCrawl, we walk around together, stopping at various places for about an hour at a time to capture the things we see around us in our sketchbooks. There are no rules - you can draw whatever takes your fancy, using whichever medium you wish (as you can see, we sometimes draw each other!)

We stop for lunch together midway, in a pub or cafe, or for a picnic if it's summer. Some people carry on drawing even as we eat! 

We try to finish in a café or bar too, where it is fun to pass round the sketchbooks, so we can share what we have created and learn from each other.

No art materials are provided: you will need a sketchbook (A6 – A4 are the easiest on the move) and your favourite media. People use coloured pencils, pastels or watercolour, but many are content with just a pencil. If you are new to SketchCrawling, I suggest you begin with whatever you're comfortable using, but you're bound to find yourself inspired to try new media next time!

You don't need much else. Warm clothing is a good idea - even on a warm day you can get chilly sitting still. I have fingerless gloves too, for those extra nippy occasions. You might also want to bring a pad to sit on, as not everywhere we go has handy seats (or a portable stool if you can’t sit on the ground).

In Sheffield, we are so keen on sketching together, we have developed 2 spin-off activities: the Tour de Sketch, which is SketchCrawling on bikes:

...and the SketchJam: drawing live music:

I always write up our days here. If you would like to be on my mailing list, to be notified about where to meet for our SketchCrawl events, let me know. You don't have to commit to coming regularly, or at all, you don't even need to reply - just turn up if you fancy it or ignore my message if not. Easy as that.

The sketches here are all from my own sketchbooks, but you can see some of the work done by other people if you look in on our Urban Sketchers Yorkshire group on Facebook. Once you have been to an event, why not join the Facebook group yourself, so you can show people your sketches?

If you enjoy sketching, you might be interested in my short film about how and why I keep sketchbooks, or in looking through some of my sketchbooks, both from the UK and from my travels in Europe or further afield.