Making A Mark is 17 years old

Yesterday was Making A Mark's 17th Birthday. 

This sketch appeared in my first post titled Two of my favourite occupations. It's of people lunching in the Club Gascon in Smithfield and was the first ever sketch on Making A Mark on 13th December 2005. None of these people were posing for me. I was sat on the banquette at the side having a very nice lunch on my own and they were all sat in front of me having lunch and talking to the other guests.

A tutor once said to me "If you can draw people, you can draw anything" before making a strong recommendation to draw regularly and to draw people as often as I could.

It marked the start of some very steady sketching in restaurants and cafes of people eating and the food I was eating 

....like the National Cafe at the National Gallery.

Lunch in The National Cafe (October 2007)
11" x 16", pen and ink in Sketchbook

......which subsequently got posted to a second blog I started called Travels with a Sketchbook - which sadly died as I started to have a lot of trouble with walking and osteoarthritis.

This reminds me of an idea I had of going out once a month to somewhere nice to eat - and drawing the people and the food. I maybe ought to resurrect that idea in 2023! Now that I'm walking better and without pain, I should make my walks end at more interesting destinations - and maybe take my sketchbooks out again.....

The sketches I used to do generated 

• a page for all my blog posts called Eat, Drink and Sketch! Interior landscapes with food - a Sketchbook 
• which includes 10 "Dos and Don'ts" for how to draw people while eating

Below are a very few of my favourite sketches from past jaunts to various venues in London, the UK and abroad

Sketching at the RA - Friends Room #7 (June 2010)
8" x 10", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook

This was when the Friends Room was delightful - with bentwood chairs and big leather Chesterfields. I stopped going after they "updated" it - and also let me Friends Membership lapsed and started going across the road to Fortnums and Masons!

Another favourite spot was restaurant at the Wallace Collection - which was the first location used for Portrait Artist of the Year - minus the cream teas - which were excellent!

Cornish Cream Tea at the Wallace Restaurant, Wallace Collection (February 2012)
11" x 16", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook

I also sketched my tea halfway through exhibitions at the Mall Galleries - and the people in the exhibition.

The Private View (199th RI Exhibition) June 2010

As well as sketching my way across the restaurants of France and across the East and West Coasts of America.

Menu du Terroir Champenois (September 2011)
(Épernay and The Grillade Gourmande)

The view at Sunday Breakfast at Tommy's in San Clemente, California
"The big cheese on the pond" - eating and sketching in San Clemente, California
(August 2006)

The last sketch - at Logan Airport (note the wifi laptops!) Sept. 2006
8" x 10", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleksine sketchbook
from Travels with a Sketchbook in New England, USA