Tiptree Sings at Christmas

First, an apology as the autoposting to this blog hasn't worked for the last few posts. You can check out the missing ones here: Blog posts.

I love going to see choirs sing at Christmas, so last night I went back to Tiptree to see a friend sing in the choir she belongs to. The setting was St Lukes church, which I have only drawn from the outside, so made sure I had coloured pencils alongside my sketchbook.

My first sketch was of some of the female choristers chatting before the concert. They were very animated and seemed quite excited which I hope I captured in the sketch. What do you think?

Listening to the lovely singing, I sketched the top drawing showing a section of the choir and the church.

I forgot to take the proof of on-location sketching shot until the choir was about to start singing in the second half of the concert, but hopefully gives a little idea of my view.




Other news: I was very flattered when Simone Ridyard asked me to contribute to her architectural sketching book, Archisketcher. Yesterday, I received my copy and the whole book is fabulous! I would thoroughly recommend buying it for your shelves because of the fabulous content, not because of my contribution :)

Finally, due to logistics the Essex&Suffolk Sketchers have renamed themselves Colchester Sketchers. 

The FB group is here: Colchester Sketchers

Have a good week everyone.

Drinking and drawing

3rd Essex & Suffolk Sketchers DrinkDraw event.

 

...talking and playing.

Here I am sketching

On Friday night, I had arranged for the Essex and Suffolk sketchers to have a 3rd DrinkDraw evening. These evenings are proving to be very successful and we had a good turn out again.

We went to the Rose and Crown in Wivenhoe, which has this great quayside beer garden. The above photo shows us hard at work sketching the estuary, boats, pub and more.

I spent most of my time chatting and/or playing with my assistant, who likes the drinkdraw evenings out, than painting. oh well there's always next month. 

Here's my one sketch, direct watercolour in an A5 Daler sketchbook.

Lowtide on the River Colne.

More talking than sketching occurred last Saturday too. It was the #48th Worldwide Sketchcrawl day, so I arranged to join the Drawing London on Location group at the Geffrye Museum in Hoxton. Unfortunately, my sketching mojo didn't come too. I was ready to sketch on the train but... it was packed as the Norwich train had been offloaded onto the train I caught. I found a seat, got sketchbook and glasses out and... the man next to me proceeded to tell me all about his life as a cruise ship pianist. 

Arriving at the museum, it was one of those days that the scale of the building was intimidating and the gardens stunning but... nothing grabbed my attention. I decided a cup of tea was the solution, which it was as I loved the organic lamps and was lucky enough to have the people I was drawing stay as long as I sketched.

The Geffrey café

After another wander around looking at the exhibits, I chatted to a few other sketchers, then decided to head off to look for my sketching mojo elsewhere.  As my lack of results on Friday show, it hadn't come back by then. Fingers crossed I relocate it this week.

A Jumbo Start

"Jumbo" Ink in A4 sketchbook. ©Sue Pownall 2015

Recently, Sarah from The Connection Magazine and I started a new urban sketching group the Essex & Suffolk Sketchers, with the aim to become an official chapter of the UrbanSketchers.

Lunchtime show & tell

We decided to start big, drawing at Colchester's old water tower, locally called Jumbo, and the first meeting was last Sunday. It was a lovely sunny day, albeit cold in the shade, and we had a great turn out.

We spent the first part of the day sketching around Jumbo and the Mercury Theatre, then after a lunch break moved onto the grounds of the Colchester Art Centre. It was a lovely day and everyone seemed enthusiastic about sketching again soon.


Below are my sketches (photos from the day are here). I'd love to hear what you think in a comment below. Thanks.

My 1st sketch, Balkerne Gate.

A sketch from the 2nd location.

I stopped for a cuppa, which came in a glass cup & had to be sketched.

 Essex & Suffolk sketchers. Find and like us on facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/EssexAndSuffolkSketchers/

Next meeting is June 20th, 12noon St Mary's Church, Halesworth, Suffolk IP19 8LL