Urban Sketchers

Fáilte

2010-08-17T09:14:00.001-07:00

After a beautiful weekend in Fife where we took a boat to the Isle of May (below), I met up with the irrepressible Liz Steel in Edinburgh. As she was in town for only a few days I took her to a redundant and dilapidated brewery. They say many things about me but I know how to show a girl a good time. Good chat, Great fun, and Liz was on fantastic form. Can't believe the breadth of her trip - I'm very envious.

In Edinburgh

2010-08-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

After nearly three weeks in the USA I am now in Scotland again! A few
days in Edinburgh sketching as much as I can. This is the front of
Jenners department store on princes street.

I am finding that post symposium I am engaging a lot more with the
people around me. If I notice someone looking over my shoulder I now
turn to say hi. I am also more bold in just sitting down on the
sidwalk in a more obvious position - previously I would sacrfice the
best view for being a little less obvious. The result is that I am
having more fun and my sketches are taking longer due to all the
conversations I am having.

I had a wonderful time in NYC - was hoping to post some sketches here
but the pace has been hectic - but in the meantime they are on my
flickr or blog

Petit Paris

2010-06-25T05:41:00.000-07:00

I couldn't tell if it might start raining or not so I sat inside and waited for friends to arrive. Petit Paris is authentically French in food, staff, gingham and wine from unpretentious tumblers. The view out, along with the striking St Raphael sign, caught my eye. The font is the closest I've seen to the ambitious and edgy London 2012 Olympic logo of which I am now a fan.

The three horse race

2010-05-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

It has been a very modern election - American even - what with the TV debates. The lamp-posters, not allowed until the final week, potentially tell us a lot about the parties: the Lib-Dems do not appear on this lamp-post, perhaps sabotaged? Other sites suggested they had the highest ladders. The Greens have a simple party slogan on thin backing, secured with twine. The Tories do not even name a party here - quite the opposite from the party-centric advertising in more sympathetic England. The Scottish Socialist party get to the point with a red star and Labour hang on to the 1997 over-design which appears to put the emphasis more on voting than the party or candidate. Which is possibly commendable, possibly poor design.

The source of the smell

2010-04-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

The west side of Edinburgh always has a thick, hoppy smell about it and the source is only a mile from my house - Caledonian Brewery. When I was a kid we used to drive to my Gran's and the smell would lie thick in my nostrils as we hit the city limits. I now know it for producing my favourite tipple, Deuchars IPA. I thought of David Macaulay as I drew this.

Advocates Close

2010-03-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

The north-facing closes (lanes) that hang off the High Street frame their views beautifully. In the centre-distance, you can even see another county across the water. And so why Edinburgh is a very appealing place to be.

Chankin'

2010-03-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

It's the change: despite it still being very much winter in Scotland, with snow on low hills, a biting wind, wooly socks - nature is is doing it's utmost to counter that - warm sun, crocuses and daffy's bursting through. As much as I savour the new season (for drawing and cycling), I have gotten skilled at wearing all these layers and keeping cosy at night.

(Chankin')

January

2010-01-18T12:09:00.000-08:00

The excitement of the snow is over and now discarded Christmas trees litter the streets.

Loony Dook 2010

2010-01-02T11:45:00.000-08:00

I went to this year's "Loony Dook" at Queensferry where brave souls jumped into the Firth of Forth to wash out the old and in with the new for New Year's day. It was a great day for it with the east coast covered in snow and they say about 3,000 folk down to see it with 800 jumping into the freezing water.

no paper? no problem

2009-12-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

Some times you just gotta feed your habit.

Jack Frost Nipping

2009-12-12T11:13:00.000-08:00

It's gotten cold here. Our more typical wet weather from the Atlantic has thankfully given way to a dry, cold front from mainland Europe. I love it. Scotland has been shrouded in a blanket of freezing mist the past week. Thankfully I had Christmassy colours at hand in Cafe Rouge today - the guy outside on the right is doing up his zip.

Meeting the Scottish Correspondents

2009-12-02T18:13:00.000-08:00

The mammoth scanning job of 4 sketchbooks from my recent trip continues slowing ... But finally I am able to post about meeting up with the two Scottish Urban sketchers in September – Will Freeborn from Glasgow and Stuart Kerr in Edinburgh. It was just so great to meet fellow urban sketchers and chat about sketching and tools etc. and especially to be able to flick through their sketchbooks. Not only are the original artworks so much better to se in real life but the there is something really special about flicking through the pages and seeing them in the context of a sketchbook as a whole. In particular Stuart fills his sketchbook randomly so it is lots of fun and slightly confusing to flick from page to page when we have to keep rotating the book as well.

Here are my sketches from Meeting with Wil. The rest of my Glasgow sketches are here.

Here are my sketches and a few photos from sketching in Edinburgh with Stuart. Rest of Edinburgh sketches here

Nation in a scuzzy notebook

2009-11-23T04:54:00.000-08:00

I was lucky to be in Sundays Glasgow Herald magazine. We did the photoshoot in the Continental Cafe in Gourock which has great windows which overlook the Clyde with some great view. It was really busy during lunch I took a bit of a beamer while I attempted to draw something on the glass instead of doing a regular portrait. Urbansketchers got a good mention, unfortunately the article isn't online at the moment but I've scanned in the article and posted them on flickr.

page 1 and page 2

From a drawing class in Edinburgh's Royal Museum, where we studied some of the animals they had there. We started off taking different areas of the museum but by the day went on we kind of drifted a bit closer to each other, it was pretty busy. Also met Scottish artist and blogger Lindsay of Little Robot

Camera Obscura

2009-11-17T07:59:00.000-08:00

I've broken out the water-colours again after a very long break. Today was cold but sunny: this building is just down from the castle in Edinburgh and the High Street is full of tourists. Some Thai girls stopped for a chat and then some Japanese leaned over my shoulder for a while.

Forth Rail Bridge

2009-10-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

The forth rail bridge always has some work going on - There are bandages all over it just now. 'Like painting the forth bridge' is what people commonly refer to a task taking forever. It's still as much a marvel to look as an adult as it was as a child. I stopped on the bike for a quick draw yesterday but soon started seizing up - I finished 1/3 of this in the warmth of home. Bare knees and standing about in autumn don't mix.

North Bridge

2009-10-18T05:45:00.000-07:00

I passed through Waverley Station car park on Saturday and glanced a grand view above me, up to the heavens on top of the old Scotsman building. I vowed to come back and managed to within the week: it's a quiet, open spot - seldom used - in the middle of town. An audience of pigeons would occasionally clap their way off a nearby platform as intercity passengers arrived readying themselves for travel to York, Inverness or London. A boy starts to cry somewhere above and out of sight and a solitary red balloon drifts up into the distance.

Palace to Parliament

2009-10-11T12:12:00.000-07:00

After climbing Arthur's seat on a glorious start to Autumn we sat in the secluded cafe at the bottom of the royal mile looking out to the Scottish Parliament. Interestingly you can read the Parliament website in Scots as well as Gaelic.

Sheila in Edinburgh

2009-09-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

Liz Steel continues her tour of Europe and popped into Edinburgh for tea and sketching - her book overflowing with drawings, watercolours and tea room paraphernalia. Liz has been prolific - watercolours with bags of character. She was terribly well equipped for stand-up sketching - bag arranged with everything at easy reach. It was lovely to meet a fellow sketcher and share my town.

Last Days of Summer

2009-09-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

An amazing day in Edinburgh checking a few exhibitions. People were making the most of the good weather hanging about in the park. The light has been stunning with long shadows.

A small bunch of tower blocks in Greenock.

Windows over the North Sea

2009-09-10T02:53:00.000-07:00

Last weekend of the festival included Sunday lunch by Edinburgh's windswept, but none-the-less beautiful, Portobello beach. Heading off to Sweden on Thursday saw still unsettled weather but with a view ahead to cosy nights in with an open fire, a good book and even better company.

Final Edinburgh sketches

2009-09-02T06:29:00.000-07:00

We went to see ‘Woody Sez’ (a biographical show about the life and music of Woody Guthrie) on our last day in Edinburgh. We’d seen and enjoyed it two years previously, but I swear I’m not going to watch it again because I found it even more moving the second time around and was in tears for almost the entire duration of the show. Some of my festival highlights that I wasn’t able to sketch were the hilarious comedian Sarah Millican, a thought provoking and funny show by Marcus Brigstocke, the play ‘Orphans’ at the Traverse theatre and the Israeli physical theatre company ‘Matinée’. We left Edinburgh as the sun was setting, sad to be back to normal life.

Another day in Edinburgh

2009-08-31T14:37:00.000-07:00

We had a quick picnic in the square and later on saw Anna & Katy. The show was surreal comedy sketches – most of which left me cold – though there were some moments of gold, such as the two Brummies explaining with increasing incredulity various TV programmes such as the weather forecast. (The man doesn’t say that it’s been rainy today, he actually tells you what the weather is going to be like tomorrow!)

Edinburgh Festival

2009-08-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Parsons, 85 year old presenter of BBC Radio’s ‘Just a minute’ has a show every year at the fringe festival presenting up and coming comedians and entertainers. This comedian was only 18 years old and did a very funny turn where he told the story of his father giving him ‘the shaving talk’ which he had thought was the ‘facts of life talk’. It was ripe with confusion – his father saying things like ‘The first time you’ll probably bleed’, and ‘I’ve given your mother a rash when I haven’t done it properly’.

Moving Melvin was a great song and dance act on the show.

The Royal Mile is full of strange and wonderful sights, street entertainers and people promoting their shows in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.

The Elephant House café has a lovely light back room with a wonderful view of the Greyfriars church yard and Edinburgh castle. This is famously the café where JK Rowling sat for hours writing Harry Potter.

More Edinburgh Festival sketches

2009-08-29T10:00:00.001-07:00

If the light was good enough and if I wasn’t overwhelmed with laughter or tears I tried to sketch in some of the fifteen or so shows we saw whilst in Edinburgh. Merv Stutter presents is one of the shows where you see snippets of shows from around the festival to help you choose what to see.

In between the shows, our teenagers were straight onto their mobile phones texting their friends.

Austen’s Women was an excellent one woman show, great fun for Austen fans.

Grassmarket, Edinburgh

2009-08-28T06:16:00.000-07:00

I’ve just come back from the Edinburgh Festival. This was drawn while waiting for teenage children to join me for lunch. I love Edinburgh, it is so much more beautiful than I imagined before I first visited it, three years ago. I envy our Edinburgh correspondent Stuart Kerr, although maybe if I visited in the winter I wouldn’t be quite as jealous. This part is full of interesting little shops and cafés. My daughter spotted an old school teacher of hers wandering down the street and thrust a flyer for her show in his hands, but I overheard him say to his wife as they left a vintage clothes shop ‘Y’know, I think all those clothes were secondhand’.