Covid Guidelines for Artists meeting in Groups

Drawing Attention, the official monthly zine of the Urban Sketchers organization publicises sketching meet-ups each month. 

This month it published some very sensible guidelines for those artists and sketchers beginning to meet up again. You can find Drawing Attention (August 2020) on Issuu and the guidelines are on pages 4 and 5.

Well done to Urban Sketchers for doing a good turn and providing a very useful checklist of everything that needs thinking about and attending to! 

Plus a lot of it is relevant to other painting groups aiming to meet up in future e.g. plein air painters.

I've clipped the relevant guidance as it struck me that the more this very sound guidance can be shared, the safer people will be. 

ONE THING: It did strike me that another couple of points:

• caution might be suggested to those aged over 70 or those who have been shielding or have an underlying condition which places them at higher risk - maybe meeting up in smaller groups to start with
• I personally would want to know who harboured young people at home who ignore safety precautions or are too young to adhere to them properly - so I can stay well away from them.

I did also wonder what the scope was for Zoom Sketching Groups!

BOTTOM LINE: As indicated, whoever is running a group and arranging meetings between people from different households should ALWAYS have the health and safety of ALL participants as their #1 priority.

Artists need to exercise good judgement, common sense and integrity

The Facebook Page News Feed Fiasco - and what to do about it

Facebook has been messing around with the news feeds of Facebook Pages and totally disrupting workflow for those managing several Pages.

I can only assume that they don't realise that people actually "like" the Facebook Pages of others so they can read them.

What used to happen

• I used to log in to my Page from my account - and the profile pic would change from my account profile pic to the one for my Facebook Page. That way I'd know which bit of Facebook I was in!
• All notifications relevant to that page were in the Notifications feed - nothing related to the personal account or any other Facebook Pages
• I'd hit the "F" logo top left of my Facebook Page and it would take me to the news feed posts for Pages I liked using that Page (bearing in mind Facebook Pages cannot like Facebook Accounts). In other words they were all relevant. From there I could share them easily on my Page.
• Facebook Page News Feeds were highly differentiated - which made them a lot easier to read and act on.

Hence.......

• when in Making A Mark I'd see all the art galleries and museums and other compendium art news pages

Making A Mark on Facebook

• when in Botanical art and Artists I'd see all the botanical artists and art societies and botanical gardens I'd liked

Botanical Art and Artists on Facebook

• when in Katherine Tyrrell: 365 Tips for Drawing and Sketching I'd see all the drawing and sketching sites I'd liked

Katherine Tyrrell: 365 Tips for Drawing and Sketching

• when in Urban Sketchers UK I'd see all the urban sketching pages I'd liked (much less effective as most of the activity is now in groups which can't be accessed!)

Urban Sketchers UK - Events

How Facebook Pages changed #1

First it started pointing to an item in the side column - "View Pages Feed" - see news items from other Pages.

So I'd click it and I'd see a very filtered view of news items from other Pages I liked.

Not very happy with this I continued to hit the F logo at the top and look for a wider range in the normal way.

How Facebook Pages changed #2

Then the news feed I saw on every one of my Pages became swamped by whatever activity I'd been doing most recently. 

So if I'd been working on my Botanical Art page all I'd see in the news feed for Making A Mark was botanical artists. The whole purpose of creating a separate Page was so I could make the needs feeds much more distinctive and differentiated i.e. niche sites!

I must have sent about three or four feedback notes to Facebook saying that I want a highly differentiated feed - one which was particular to each page.

No response other than the usual "we are reading this and thank you for sending in your feedback"

How Facebook Pages changed #3

• You cannot log into and out of individual Facebook Pages
• You cannot access your feed by clicking the "F" logo - and what was always a very trimmed feed edited by Facebook now appears to me to be even more "edited"
• Separate and filtered news feeds have been moved to the button to press in the lefthand column 

There's no way that items from niche interest Pages are going to be able to compete with more popular news feed items - so we're going to be fed downsized pap!

I can only surmise that this is a cunning move on Facebook's part to get you to start using advertising so that your Facebook Page posts will be seen.

• Plus management of workflow has been decimated. The notifications feed for your Facebook Page has been TOTALLY ELIMINATED making the workflow for dealing with updates to one specific page at one specific time all but impossible
• Instead you get to see a total mishmash of items in one feed which is identical irrespective of whether you in your account or one or other of your Facebook Pages.
• It's a monumental mess for those of us with more than one Page.

The net overall result is a LOT of people are going to see traffic to their Pages taking a major dive - as illustrated by my latest stats.

For me this starts to make Facebook a lot less effective as a tool for communicating with people.

How to beat Facebook Page Changes

Below you can find my instructions for how to beat the Facebook changes to the Pages newsfeed. It's a bit more complicated to access the news feed but at least you get to read what you want to see.

Urban Sketching doesn't happen in colouring books

I'm very disappointed in North Light Books.  I used to think they were a great publishing firm for artists. I always used to look out for their new publications and was delighted when I found out my book would be published by them.

The reason I'm disappointed is that North Light Books have put out a Call for Entries for urban sketchers to contribute pen and ink art for a COLOURING BOOK!

the beginning of the Call for Entries
(The referenced sketch is from a VERY different sort of book by Marc Taro Holmes - as you can see from the title
Make sure when signing a book contract that your sketches can NOT be used for colouring books!)

I'm not a fan of Colouring Books. I used to enjoy them when I was a small child. I can sort of see the meditative point of the mandala types ones. However they are essentially for people who like colour and colouring and they are very definitely NOT about drawing and sketching.

The thing is colouring books are selling in the millions.

They are the latest fad. They're keeping WH Smith's bottom line looking good right now.  If you put "drawing" into Amazon, and search for the featured books all you can see is colouring books.   Try it.

It's very, very depressing. People colour in a design and think they're drawing.

Let's be very clear. Colouring books do NOT teach anybody about how to draw or sketch.

It's therefore very sad that a movement like urban sketchers - which does place an enormously helpful emphasis on going 'on location' and 'drawing from observation' - using hand and eye - should in any way be associated with a Colouring Book - irrespective of whether or not they were asked (and I don't think they were).

I've written to Kristin Conlin, the Editor of North Light Books - in response to the invitation to contribute that was sent to me - and told her what I think of this latest 'wheeze'.

Here's some extracts

I take an extremely dim view of what North Light Books is doing with this sort of email.

THE WHOLE POINT OF URBAN SKETCHERS IS TO DRAW ON LOCATION AND FROM OBSERVATION. It's emphatically NOT about colouring books!

I want to emphasise that IMO your book  can in no way, shape or form can be associated with "urban sketching"!
I'll also be writing about this idea on my blog and the London Urban Sketchers Blog and will be emphasising to artists that

• urban sketching is ALWAYS DONE ON LOCATION AND FROM OBSERVATION - and NEVER EVER by copying the work of other urban sketchers

• Colouring books with pre-printed sketches do NOT help people to become better urban sketchers - quite the reverse. 

Sadly, I think urban sketchers who want to see their drawings in print will ignore the underlying philosophy of urban sketching and will grab the opportunity to send in their pen and ink drawings.

I'll be very sad if they do...

If anybody reading the email from Kristin Conlin feels tempted to do this, all I ask is that they reread the Urban Sketchers Manifesto first - and reflect on it.

Maybe North Light Books could do the same?

Our Manifesto

1. We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation.
2. Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel.
3. Our drawings are a record of time and place.
4. We are truthful to the scenes we witness.
5. We use any kind of media and cherish our individual styles.
6. We support each other and draw together.
7. We share our drawings online.
8. We show the world, one drawing at a time.

This is another extract from my email.

If and when you publish this book, I shall make a point of reviewing it on my blog and on Amazon. I think you can by now guess what I will be saying! I would imagine rather a lot of other urban sketchers might do the same.

So the questions for all urban sketchers are:

• Do you want to get out and about and use your hands and eyes to draw and remain true to urban sketching? 
• Or do you want two free copies of a book - so you can sit at home and colour it in?

What's your view?

Urban Sketchers: Gabi Campanario steps down

A major announcement by Gabi Campanario today - he's stepping down from the Board of Urban Sketchers.

Dear fellow urban sketchers,

Since setting up the Urban Sketchers nonprofit in 2009, I've been quite involved with most operational aspects of the organization, from filing government forms and dealing with bank accounts to setting up blogs, organizing events and recruiting volunteers.

As Urban Sketchers has grown and thrived, many others have contributed their time and efforts, and we've built a solid and sustainable nonprofit. That level of shared commitment and belief in our mission is why I feel comfortable that we've reached the point in our natural evolution for the founder to take the back seat. After my term expires in December, I'll no longer be part of the Executive Board.

But I'm not wandering off too far. I have offered to serve on the Advisory Board and plan to continue contributing as a blog editor and correspondent.

I'm very proud of the work we do as a nonprofit, organizing an exhilarating international Symposium every year, promoting workshops and publishing blogs.

It makes a difference in the way people see the world and connect with each other.

I hear it all the time: "Urban Sketchers has changed my life!" people tell me. And I reply the same way: "It has changed mine, too!"

Gratefully and respectfully yours,

gabi

Gabi Campanario has given so very much in terms of time and effort to Urban Sketchers that it seems remiss not to try and mark this change in some way.

Below I've got a timeline - and a few images and links - which those of you who came to Urban Sketchers late in the day may well find interesting, while the rest of us reflect on just how long it has been since Gabi had a very good idea!

Urban Sketchers Timeline - a Gabi perspective

• 2007: Gabi begins the Urban Sketchers story - and creates a Flickr group for those interested in urban sketching.  This is the original group.

In 2007, a global community of urban sketchers began to form when Seattle-based journalist and illustrator Gabriel Campanario created an online forum “for all sketchers out there who love to draw the cities where they live and visit, from the window of their homes, from a cafe, at a park, standing by a street corner... always on location, not from photos or memory.”  Our history

•  2008: The Urban Sketchers blog was set up by Gabi - who invited others to join. I feel very privileged to say I was one of the original 100 who joined Urban Sketchers in the very early days. Here's a link to Gabi's introduction as a correspondent - Meet the correspondents: SEATTLE > Gabi Campanario - dated 29th October 2008. (The following day I was introducing myself!)

Urban Sketchers UK - all the events on one page

I've noticed on every London Urban Sketchers sketchcrawl that I've organised that we always seem to get people coming along who are temporarily visiting London.

Plus we also have a large group of people from around the UK (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, Northampton, Southampton) who regularly come to the sketchcrawls in London

It struck me that maybe other Urban Sketchers groups in the UK and other sketchcrawls run by these groups could also have more visitors if maybe our sketchcrawls got a higher profile and were shared around more.

Example: I'm off to a sketchcrawl at Magdalene College in Cambridge next weekend because I found out about it from somebody who came to our one in London on Sunday!

Especially as all sketchcrawls are FREE and open to all comers!

They are certainly not reserved just for those who belong to a group - and people are welcome to joint the numerous groups around the UK - and we need to get that message out!

So I've decided to run an experiment for the next two-three months.

I've set up a new Facebook Page called Urban Sketchers UK - Events. The aims of the new Page are as follows:

• highlight the Sketchcrawls run on a regular basis around the UK by various Urban Sketchers Groups
• make the number of groups - and how to join them - more accessible to people around the UK and visitors from overseas - see List of Urban Sketchers Groups in the UK (accessible via the Facebook Page)
• highlight official urban sketchers group exhibitions and approved workshops to a wider audience
• if successful - provide support for the people visiting the UK next year for the Urban Sketchers Symposium 2016 in Manchester.  Three of the urban sketchers groups will be supporting the activities of the symposium run by Manchester Urban Sketchers and planning events in their own areas.  They are:
• London Urban Sketchers (which I belong to)
• Birmingham Urban Sketchers and 
• and Urban Sketchers Yorkshire

What's on "Urban Sketchers UK - Events"?

On the new Facebook Page you can

• check out event listings which replicate those in the host group - all in one place (see the events tab on the top menu). They tell you the date, the venue, the timings and what's on offer.
• find out How to set up an event on "Urban Sketchers UK - Events". 

In other words it's just a single point of contact for all the listings.

It's not talking over the events created by the host groups. Indeed no event will be included unless it already has a listing on the host group!

The big question is how to keep it up to date. One of the ways I hope to do this is to get input from "Editors" appointed by the different groups who contribute and update the page for their events as and when required.

But you don't have to be able to use Facebook or set up an event in order to get one listed - you just need to leave a comment on the Page and tell me the link on wherever you post information about your group's sketchcrawls and other events.

Please note I only started this last night(!) and don't yet have all current sketchcrawls on the new Facebook Page - but you can see a sample of them for next weekend below.

UK Urban Sketchers Events - this is what is accessible via the events tab.

Click the link to see event details.

Click the link on that event page and go straight to the host group.

Your input

I'd be very interested in people's comments about this initiative - which took off last night when I wanted to see if I could make it work - and how it could maybe be improved. 

• So far we have c.50 people who like the idea. Will you be one of them?
• What do you think might make it better?

Links: 

• CHECK OUT the urban sketchers groups in the UK! 
• London Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawls - this page on the blog lists the planned sketchcrawls (dates and venues) for the next four months up to the end of 2015

How to draw and sketch in an art gallery or museum #1

This is the first in a series of posts about drawing and sketching in art galleries and museums.

There are rules which are generally applicable for what you can and cannot do when wanting to draw or sketch and, below, I highlight what these are.

I've also reviewed all the public (ie on the website) statements about rules relating to drawing and sketching in the major art galleries and other museums in London.

These have enabled me to highlight a number of interesting conclusions - not least that a number of them have no public statement about what's allowed re. drawing and sketching inside the gallery or museum.  Lots about copyright, lots about photography and zilch about sketching!

Drawing and Sketching in Art Galleries and Museums

Below are the general principles observed by most art galleries and museums.
So if you want a quick checklist of what rules are most likely to be applicable read on!

They're interspersed by sketches I've done in London.

The PLUS Points

• In general, art activities are encouraged and supported by art galleries and museums.
• It's a traditional activity of students wanting to learn.
• Many art galleries and museums encourage people to draw from paintings
• However that support for drawing and sketching is expressed in different ways
• Many art galleries and museums provide free sketching stools. These aren't always obvious and sometimes you have to ask where they are. At weekends and other busy times it's not unusual for them to go very fast!

Wallace Collection - Judy and the horses
11.5" x 17", pen and sepia ink in Daler Rowney Sketchbook

The MAJOR Concerns

• Artworks MUST be protected. Hence here are some of the usual rules:
• Dry media only - pencils and coloured pencils are fine (but charcoals and pastels can be messy and some galleries don't like then)
• Liquid/wet media is very often banned. Hence paints, marker pens and bottles of ink are very often not allowed in museums - mainly because these have more scope to cause permanent damage very fast if used/thrown on a painting or sculpture
• Do not lean on the artwork
• Some museums won't allow backpacks
• Health and safety of ALL visitors is very important
• It's essential to be considerate of others and advisable to be polite to the security people
• Keep the floors clear of obstructions which people might fall over
• If you're in a high traffic area (such as a popular temporary exhibition) you might well be prohibited from sketching or get moved on

TIPS for safe sketching

I've been sketching in art galleries and museums for years and years. I've learned a few things in that time about how to sketch effectively and without comment and not get thrown out!

What are your favourite things - related to art?

Today I've been focused on sorting out the answers to an email interview with Steve Pill, the Editor of Artists & Illustrators Magazine - which is a very popular art magazine in the UK.

recent covers for Artists & Illustrators

You'll have to wait and see what the answers are when the magazine is published (and I'm not sure as yet which edition it will be).

However I thought I'd share the questions with you. It's for a new feature in the magazine called "My Favourite Things" - which sounds like the sort of article I always love to read!

These were my questions.

• As an 'urban sketcher', where is your favourite place to draw?
• And what is your favourite sketching implement?
• If money was no object, which one painting would you most like to own?
• Apart from your own, which art blog do you most enjoy reading and why?
• Do you have a favourite coffee-table art book?
• Which gallery do you enjoy visiting most to discover new art and artists?
• Do you have a favourite art school and/or art tutor?
• Which is your favourite art shop?
• What was the last great exhibition you saw?

Why don't you see if you can answer these questions? 

What are your favourite things related to art?  Leave your answer as a comment - I'm interested to know! :)

I found some of them nearly impossible to answer and it was really difficult trying to narrow down to just one answer.

A new exhibition by Urban Sketchers London

You can catch up on my latest exhibition over on my travel sketchbook - see
Urban Sketchers London - new exhibition at Timberyard (Old Street)

Below you can see a video I took this morning - and one of these days I'm going to remember to switch on the HD before I start the video on my iPad Mini!

Liz Steel is in London and sketching High Tea!

Sketching High Tea at Fortnum & Masons - 3 hours after we started.....

I was 'missing in action' yesterday because "the famous Liz Steel" (Liz and Borromini; Sketching Architecture) arrived in London and together we visited the 245th Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. (See 10 reasons to visit the RA Summer Exhibition 2013).

Followed by a walk across the road to the 4th floor of Fortnum & Mason in Piccadilly and High Tea in the Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon.

Liz and I arrived at 4.15pm and we left nearly 5 hours later - such a lot of catching up, talking and sketching with my fellow Urban Sketcher!

This is the scene at 7.30pm. I'm sketching in Coloured Pencils and Liz is painting in watercolour (in her 4th sketchbook of her trip!).  At this stage we've both eaten a savoury starter and our cream tea and sketched the patisserie twice and eaten none of them.  One more cake and one more sketch to go!

Right click the photo and open in a new tab to see a much bigger image of our unfinished sketches.

You can see:

• my sketches of our High Tea on my Travels with a Sketchbook blog later today.  See
  Sketching High Tea at Fortnum & Mason with Liz Steel.  Plus, for the foodies, I'll tell you what I had to eat!
• more of my foodie drawings on my Pastels and Pencils website.

You can also see more sketches of Liz's trip to Europe and photos of her participation in the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Barcelona on her Flickr Photostream.

Note:  We had a big giggle about the number of times she's now heard the term "the famous Liz Steel" in introductions or responses from people on first meeting her.  It's truly amazing how sketching can change your life - and international status! :)

10 x 10 Drawing the West End of London

I only found out about 10 x 10 a couple of days ago.  This is a project which enables 100 (ie 10 x 10) of the world's best artists, architects and designers to draw the City of London in order to raise funds for Article 25 - a charity which promotes shelter solutions for those without homes

The 25th article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that adequate shelter and housing are fundamental to our human rights.

Article 25, the UK organisation, works to enable this right by building solutions to global problems.

Article 25 is an operational UK registered charity that designs, builds, and manages projects to provide better shelter wherever there is disaster, poverty, or need.

This is the second year that they have drawn London - this year they've focused on the West End - which was split into a 10 x 10 grid of squares. (Last year they drew the City of London)

The project focuses on a different area of the city each year, with a grid of 100 squares laid over the chosen area. The resulting squares are then allocated to the participants who create an original artwork based on the buildings and public space within it. These pieces of artwork form a collective snapshot of London from one-hundred personal view points, forming a unique showcase of British architectural heritage.

The Drawing Weekend - which happened this year on 15th September - is when the drawing takes place.  Here's a video of what happened.

These are the participants - I spotted two artists who I recently featured in 'Built" : recording and responding to the construction process - Patricia Cain, ("Soho Construction") Jeanette Barnes (No. 66 Lincoln’s Inn Field).

Jeanette Barnes drawing 66 Lincolns Inn Fields and cranes

Others include

• Norman Ackroyd "Study of September Sunlight"
• Sir Terry Farrell ("Courtyard: Comyn Ching and Comyn Ching"), 
• Lord Norman Foster "The British Museum - A Working Sketch"
• David Gentleman ("St. James’s Square")
• Sir Nicholas Grimshaw (Fitzrovia)
• Zaha Hadid ("Leicester Square")
• and Paul Smith ("360 Degrees")
• as well as an awful lot of architects and designers.

They've been having a public exhibition of the drawings at Somerset House which finished today. I had intended to go and see this but unfortunately missed as my (very wonky) right foot started misbehaving in a major way this morning and it was a struggle just to stay on my feet without falling over!

However you can still see:

• the exhibition of the artwork online until the live auction of 25 selected pieces which takes place at Somerset House at 7pm on 14th November 2012.
• buy the catalogue of the artwork - ordered according to designated square in the grid
• artwork on their Facebook page 10x10 London: Drawing the City

PS I was rather pleased to see that some of the people taking part tend to draw in a way which is not too dissimilar to Urban Sketchers (and Urban Sketchers London)!

15th July 2012: Who's made a mark this week?

I've been reading about and viewing the photos which have been emerging from San Domingo where the Urban Sketchers Symposium was held last week.  Plus Saturday was the worldwide sketchcrawl #36 and many of those who were out sketching also posted their work to the Urban Sketchers blog - this was a very impressive effort 

These are the posts to the urban sketchers blog by Lapin (Lapin - the blog)who was the official reporter for the symposium

• live from santo domingo - usk symposium day 1
• live from santo domingo - usk symposium day 2
• live from santo domingo - usk symposium day 3

You might also want to keep an eye on the blogs of some of the instructors at the symposium namely: Frank Ching Seeing.Thinking.Drawing - this is his post USK Santo Domingo with pictures of the people who attended workshops he ran with Liz Steel (Liz and Borromini) plus the "end of term" photo!  Liz has also posted a huge number of photos on her Flickr account and this is her July archive on Liz and Borromini to date which is packed with posts about the trip - including the two days she was there before the rest of the sketchers started to arrive.

The day before sketches by Liz Steel

Artists and Art Blogs

Urban Sketches - printed, matted, framed, and hung!

Sketches by Katherine Tyrrell hung in The Art of Urban Sketching Exhibition at Foyles

Who's made a mark this week is going to be published tomorrow.  I've been a bit busy yesterday and today converting sketches in sketchbooks into prints, matted and framed and then transported from my kitchen floor - see below - to the wall of The Art of Urban Sketching Exhibition which opens at Foyles tomorrow.

Sketches of London by Katherine Tyrrell
for The Art of Urban Sketching Exhibition at Foyles Bookshop
16-22 July 2012

This exhibition is being held this next week - 16-22 July 2012 - in The Gallery at Foyles, Third Floor, 113-119 Charing Cross Road. Foyles is an independent bookseller who won the prestigious National Bookseller of the Year 2012.  The Charing Cross store is its original and flagship store.

The exhibition is part of:

• the Urban Sketchers London Events Programme relating to the launch of the new book about Urban Sketching by Gabi Campanario and the other Urban Sketchers
• the Foyles Sketching the City Season events programme.

See:

• The Art of Urban Sketching - at Foyles in London on Travels with a Sketchbook for more details.
• The Art of Urban Sketching Exhibition - my contribution for more about the location of the sketches in the above images

Exhibition Poster - in Foyles window fronting Charing Cross Road

There will be a post on Urban Sketchers London with photos of exhibition - including each set of sketches and the correspondent who produced them.

How to produce prints of sketches for an exhibition

Here's the process I used for getting sketches framed for an exhibition

1. First I selected those pen and ink and coloured pencil sketches which looked like they might read across a room 
2. I chose two themes - art galleries and a favourite sketching location - Kew Gardens
3. I scanned or photographed the double page spreads
4. Then converted the image file into a tiff file (lossless compression) - to improve the quality of the printing.
5. I produced a printed version of the image on an A4 page of Somerset Enhanced Velvet (which is a matt paper with some tooth)
6. I had to restate the coloured pencil to get back to the colours and values of the sketches in my sketchbook.  Fortunately the paper is very accepting of coloured pencils
7. I then matted - using Daler Rowney Mountboard in Antique White - and framed them in frames which were either A3 size or 30cm x 40cm
8. They were given a glass clean inside and out before my better half applied the brass mirror plates for screwing the works to the wall of the gallery.
9. Finally many thanks to Nathan Brenville (Tinmouse) who helped me by screwing the frames to the wall. (My right hand doesn't grip too well!)

I'd be interested to know if anybody else has ever tried converting sketchbooks to prints - I'm still umming and erring about the authenticity of the centre fold in my double page spread sketches!

PS Anybody notice the consistent theme to my sketches?

The London Sketchbook Challenge - Call for Entries

The legendary bookshop Foyles is having a summer season of exhibitions devoted to Sketching the City of London.  London is, of course, expecting a few more visitors this summer!

This post is about a chance for anybody who has sketched in London to have their work included in an exhibition about Sketching London!

A Foyles Summer Season of Exhibitions devoted to Sketching the City

The Art of Urban Sketching

Next week, Foyles Gallery on the 3rd floor of their flagship bookshop at 113-119 Charing Cross Road will be devoted to an exhibition about The Art of Urban Sketching.  The exhibition includes extracts from the book by Gabi Campanario and members of Urban Sketchers all over the world - plus sketches by correspondents for Urban Sketchers London - see The Art of Urban Sketching - at Foyles in London on my sketchbook blog.


Which means you'll be able to see a larger version of some of my sketches! :)

However if YOU too would like to have one or more of your sketches included in the subsequent exhibition - this is what you have to do.


The London Sketchbook Challenge

Foyles' next exhibition is one which is being specially created in response to the London Sketchbook challenge.  The work it will include will be created by those who currently sketch in London.

This exhibition aims to create a vision of London by those who know it best - you. As London builds up to the Games this summer all eyes will be focussed on the city, with an influx of new visitors discovering its well-trodden streets and a transformation that may or may not feel like the London you know and love. We want to capture the real London - that melting pot of different cultures, traditions, residents and visitors who make it what it is - by transforming the Gallery into a vast, walk-in sketchbook.

This is where you come in - we're asking you to submit as many of your own personal sketches of the capital as possible - not just skylines and monuments, but the hidden corners, the secret hideaways that make London yours. They can be drawings, paintings, collages or even poetry, we just ask that entrants comply with the requirements below.* We will then collage the walls with as much of your work as possible, and will select and frame some of our favourite examples to showcase in the space.

You can read the details requirements on the Sketching the City page on the Foyles website

Requirements:

• All work must be two-dimensional and must not exceed A4 in size
• Sketches should be done on paper or light card that is easy to display
• Media: drawings, paintings, collages or even poetry

Timescale:

• delivery of sketches: 23rd of May 2012 and the 9th of August 2012
• exhibition in Foyles Gallery: 27th July - 12th August 2012 (Monday - Saturday 9.30am - 5pm and Sunday 11.30am - 6pm).  The Gallery may be closed when instore events and meetings are taking place

Delivery:

• Deadline: 9th August 2012
• Sketches of London should be left at one of the designated drop-off points on the ground floor of Foyles Charing Cross Road
• or email them to gallery@foyles.co.uk

Caution:

• There is no guarantee that you will get your work back - and it's possible it may be damaged.
• Exhibitors should be able collect their work from the Gallery on Monday 13 August between 10.30am and 5pm, but Foyles do not guarantee that work will be returned after the show.
• Work will not be displayed if it does not comply with the size requirements or is deemed unsuitable to show

I'd suggest that if your work is in a sketchbook that you scan it and email them a file

27th May 2012 - Who's made a mark this week?

I've been busy again this week with matters relating to activities of the new Urban Sketchers London group.  On Saturday, we held our first Sketchcrawl.  This was very ably organised by Pete Scully (Pete Scully), whose hand drawn and annotated maps are an artwork in themselves!

We had a wonderful sunny day.  Pete did a count-up from the attendance sheets and around about 50 people signed the sheets and more people came for just part of the day.  There were some amazing sketches and lots of variety in the sketching we saw although, rather oddly, very much less watercolour sketching than I think occurs elsewhere.  That said we had rather a lot of architecture in Fleet Street and the Temple to deal with!

• You can read more about it and see photos of the day in Photos from the 1st "Let's Draw London" Sketchcrawl
• You can also see a quick photo of my sketches at the end of the day 

My fellow founder members of the Urban Sketchers London blog will be posting sketches on our respective sketch blogs and the urban sketchers blog later this week.

Yesterday I set up a Flickr Group for people to post their sketches to who attended the Sketchcrawl - which you cam find here.  There won't be there just yet as we've not yet written to those who attended the sketchcrawl.

James Oses and drawings of Fleet Street

In the meantime I'm highlighting below some of the people who came to the sketchcrawl - and the work they did and the posts they wrote.

I had a n awful lot of "looking at London" on Saturday!  I've also highlighted the content of a fascinating BBC2 programme about A Picture of London broadcast on Saturday night.  If you're interested in how people portray London in paintings over the centuries then I recommend you catchup using the BBC iPlayer link in my post.

Artists and Art Blogs

1st Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl

We learned from those coming to the Sketchcrawl that there are various other groups out there who are also drawing London - and we aim to connect up in some way.

• In particular, a lot of people who came to the sketchcrawl also follow Drawing London on Location group via the Meetup site.  We'll definitely be looking at ways in which we can keep calendar communications going for our mutual benefit 
• Personally, I very much enjoyed meeting up with illustrator James Oses (James Oses Illustrator) yesterday.  He produced some absolutely wonderful drawings of a couple of the old newspaper buildings in Fleet Street.
• London Sketch Crawl was posted on Franvisions.  Now I think Fran is called Francesca but I'll let her identify herself.
• Lis Watkins (Line and Wash) produced three great sketches - using line and wash - during a Morning on the London Sketchcrawl 
• Yor can now see even more sketches and photos of the Sketchcrawl in the NEW Urban Sketchers London - Group Pool.  Try this view

Botanical art

• Jan Harbon has been a featured artist on the website of Artists and Illustrators magazine 
• Botanical Illustration is the art blog of the Denver Botanic Gardens' Botanical Art and Illustration Certificate Program.  Last week they highlighted that the way in which the  Botanical Illustration program memorializes Sydney Parkinson.  You can read more about the famous botanical artists Sydney Parkinson on my website - About Sydney Parkinson - Botanical Artist

Drawing

• Another group which might be helpful to those seeking opportunities for life drawing in London is LondonLifeDrawing - also on meetup.com
• I found the Journal and sketchbook Illustrations by Queen Victoria to be absolutely fascinating

Landscape

• I came across this blog Jamie Kapitain Artist by Canadian landscape artist Jamie Kapitain.  He posts sketches and oil paintings on canvas.
• Michael Chesley Johnson spotted this post How deep is your space on the blog of the Oil Painters of America.  It's about one of his very favourite painters, Charles Movalli, who studied with Emile Gruppe.

Portraiture

• People have commented in the past about the fact that the media restrictions of the BP Portrait Award means that types of portraiture which don't involve the use of acrylic or oil paint are lost from view.  Colossal Art and Design has two posts which highlight the different ways people make portraiture these days
• Photographic Specimens by Michael Mapes on explains how Michael Mapes creates specimen boxes of dissected images and other items related to the individual pinned to create an image of the original photographic portrait. I think it's a new take on an old approach and the images are amazingly effective.  I just wonder how long they will last.

The boxes house thousands of individual specimens consisting of dissected photographs and biographical DNA in the form of such things as hair, finger nails, scent, eye lashes, fingerprints, food, botanical elements, fabric swatches, makeup, dirt, handwriting samples and breath.Michael Mapes website

• New Thread & Nail Portraits by Pamela Campagna are also very effective. 

Art Business & Marketing

• This is what the social media marketing maze looks like - one glance made my head hurt!
• I'm seeing quite a few references to Susan Mumford's Be Smart about Art Academy - it looks interesting.
• Alyson Stanfield (artbizblog) has 5 Painless Fixes for a More Potent Artist Statement which i've now included in my website How to write an Artist's Statement
• Robert Genn highlighted the fate of fashionable products such as black velvet art.  For the uninitiated - this is what black velvet art looks like this on eBay.  I think this must have been an American phenomenon - I don't remember seeing much of this in the UK.
• Etsy have changed their fee structure in response to a lot of requests - No Longer Pay for Quantity Up Front

Sellers will only be charged $0.20 USD to list or renew an item, regardless of quantity. Fees for additional quantities will only apply when an item sells.

Art Competitions

Artists and Illustrators magazine is holding a competition to find the Artists of the Year 2012.  The deadline is 16 August 2012 closing date, after which a shortlist of works will be drawn up by the expert panel and then readers will also have the chance to vote for their favourite works on the Artists & Illustrators website.

Rather than submitting an artwork in a specific category, we will be holding an open competition so you can send in artworks depicting any subject, in any medium: from botanical art to figurative works, abstract paintings to rural landscapes

Art Exhibitions

Exhibitions in the UK

• I've always preferred Da Vinci's drawings and cartoons to his paintings. You can see the Da Vinci anatomy drawings at Buckingham Palace - Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist in The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace Friday (until Sunday, 7 October 2012).  The Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomy app, which accompanies the exhibition, is now available to buy on the itunes app store.

Exhibitions in Europe

• I didn't quite understand the rationale behind the focus of this review "Britain's Greatest Artist" Abandons Photography of Hockney's exhibition "David Hockney, a Bigger Picture" at the the Guggenheim in Bilbao until September 30, 2012 - even if it is written by the Onwer/Editor of Outdoor Painting. Hockney has been plein air landscape painting for quite some years but this is mentioned in passing whereas the article places more emphasis on one aspect of Hockney's career from quite some time ago.  In particular, the comment about his drawing perplexes me.  Hockney won a prize for his drawing while at the RCA and was generally regarded as an outstanding student!  Anybody who has actually seen the charcoal and iPad drawings in this exhibition would be in no doubt of this.  For a more up to date perspective on Hockney see the other recent articles about this exhibition David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture on my website About David Hockney - British Artist

Exhibitions in the USA

• Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective is now open at The Art Institute of Chicago 
• A new exhibition of self-portraits by Andy Warhol Andy Warhol: Late Self-Portraits is now open at Graves Gallery in Sheffield until 1st December 2012.  The works on display are from ARTIST ROOMS, a collection of modern and contemporary art donated by Anthony d’Offay to Tate and National Galleries of Scotland for the nation.

Andy Warhol was also the most photographed American artist of the 20th century. But what do the images he created of himself really tell us about him? Who was Warhol?

Art Education

• Carol Marine has produced a A Daily Paintworks Affordable ArtByte Tutorial - "Saturation and Color Mixing".  It's getting good reviews.  Byte-sized and affordable seems to be the way forward for online Art Tutorials.  This one has Video and a Peer Critique.
• William Schneider OPA provides tips for Self Improvement on the on the blog of the Oil Painters of America. 
• On Making A Mark Reviews I've highlighted and reviewed the Art in Transit: Handbook for Packing and Transporting Paintings 

Art Studio and Supplies

• My friend Nicole Caulfield (Nicole Caulfield) drew my attention to this post 1963 Airstream Trailer Transformed into Beautiful Modern Studio by Bridgette Meinhold.  My immediate reaction is that would make a great way of taking art tutorials and workshops on the road.
• Ester Roi highlights how she built a new way of organising her coloured pencils
• My Art Studio mew media organizer
• Media Organizer step by step

Techies

• Google Insights suggest that The majority don’t understand search

and finally.....

There are new T shirts for painters in watercolour - I thought these by Carol Carter (Paintings) were rather good

The Art of Urban Sketching Book Launch - London 19th May

Urban Sketchers London will be at Cass Arts Islington between 12.30pm and 5.30pm on Saturday 19th May for the launch of The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World which contains work by London based correspondents.

Six artists will be sketching, answering questions and encouraging young and old alike to get involved in drawing! It's FREE too, just drop in 12.30-5.30pm.

We had intended to do this book launch a lot earlier - just after Urban Sketchers London formally launched on 1st March this year.  However, the book proved to be so popular that it shot to the top of the art book charts and sold out so fast that we quickly realised we'd be having a book launch with no books!

That didn't seem to be a great idea so we reluctantly decided we'd have to delay it.

Come and meet the founder members of London Urban Sketchers who will be at the event on Saturday afternoon.  We all regularly draw on location around and about London cities and contribute to the international Urban Sketchers blog as well as the NEW Urban Sketchers London blog.

We will be demonstrating how we like to sketch and showing you what are our favourite art materials for sketching.

You should be able to find at least two of us 'working' at a time between 12.30pm and 5.30pm.  One of us will be acting as a demonstrator and will be answering questions while others can be found drawing elsewhere in the store or helping out with responding to questions.

London Urban Sketchers are listed below with the demonstrator listed first

• 12.30 Zhenia Vasiliev Zhenia Vasiliev  and me 
• 1.30 Adebanji Alade Adebanji Alade, My Art My Passion for Sketching and Zhenia
• 2.30 myself - Katherine Tyrrell Travels with a Sketchbook and Adebanji
• 3.30 Olha Pryymak Olha Pryymak and James
• 4.30 James Hobbs Hobbs blog and Barry
• Barry Jackson Prof Shorthair will be around all afternoon.

Cass Arts Islington

Cass Arts

We're very happy to be partnering with Cass Arts for the launch.  They've started a Facebook event page for the launch.  You can find Cass Art Islington at 66-67 Colebrooke Row, London N1 8AB 

The Cass Arts Islington store - where the launch will be - is their flagship store and the largest of their five stores in London.  This is their Manifesto

How to get there

These are the links to:

• the Transport for London map of the Planned weekend Tube closures for the weekend 19/20 May 2012.  This is the link to the Transport for London pdf file which shows the service disruptions this weekend.
• Use the Journey Planner on the TfL website to work out the best route to the store on Saturday afternoon.

About Urban Sketchers

Urban Sketchers started online as a flickr group in 2007 and later became a nonprofit organization. Our mission as a nonprofit is to raise the artistic, storytelling and educational value of location drawing, promoting its practice and connecting people around the world who draw on location where they live and travel. We aim to show the world, one drawing at a time.

This is the manifesto we follow:

• We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation.
• Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel.
• Our drawings are a record of time and place.
• We are truthful to the scenes we witness.
• We use any kind of media and cherish our individual styles.
• We support each other and draw together.
• We share our drawings online.
• We show the world, one drawing at a time.

USK is now a charitable foundation, and organises an annual international symposium, as well as encouraging urban sketching.