50th WWSketchCrawl: Colchester

Yesterday afternoon, I arranged for the Colchester Sketchers to sketchcrawl at the bottom of the High Street. Tucked down a lane is the Coffee Cube café, which is where we arranged to meet. After a week that saw sleet and rain, we were amazed to have a blue sky and sunshine, so half of us sat outside to sketch the castle.

First sketch underway.

Being the organiser, I spent more time talking than sketching at the meeting point, but did manage to spend half an hour on my sketch of the castle. Luckily, as the sun disappeared behind the clouds, it was time to move on.

My first sketch

 Our second location was Hollytrees Museum, which is a museum of domestic life and childhood. Several of us were attracted by the Alice in Wonderland temporary exhibition.

The Queeen's croquet game.

  Our final location was the new Tiptree Tearoom at the Minories Gallery. I think we were all so interested in each others sketches and having some tea, that nobody sketched there. I plan to return another day as the choice of teas and cakes demand a proper "sketch" visit.

Colchester Sketchers (minus Johnny) show off their sketches.

  Where did you sketch?

Sketchday in Colchester.

I had a fabulous day today! Sandra of Sandraws came up to Colchester for the day and we spent the time drinking tea, chatting, and doing a lot of sketching. Sandra did fabulously working way out of her comfort zone as she rarely draws in public or uses pen & ink, but did both with great results.

As it was sunny we started in Colchester Castle Park, where our first stop was at the ornamental pond. Above and photo at end of the post.  Then it was on to the park's café. There were too many things to draw: the bandstand, an old red telephone box, the café...etc., so I drew some of the beautiful flowers, in black & white.

Then, I attempted to draw the wall with it's ornamental roses, and steps with topiary bushes. I am very unhappy with this one, but as I try to be honest and post 99% of what I do, here it is.

After a lunch break, and feeling a little chilled we went into Hollytrees Museum, which is a social history museum. We were not over inspired, but we still drew: I drew a box camera in a case, whilst Sandra drew an old iron in one of the interactive displays. 

Back outside we stopped at the George Hotel and sat outside to sketch the huge lamp.

Then finally, I think both of us were a bit sketched out by this point, we headed back into the park and I drew a section of castle from the rear.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I had a fabulous day and I hope to go out sketching with Sandra again. Thank you Sandra for driving up and for lunch.

Drawing Sandra

btw Throughout the day I used a Winsor & Newton A5 heavyweight sketchbook. The paper is a dream taking both pen & watercolour well, and it is a very white white. It also opens up lovely and flat. My one criticism is that the pages are perforated making single spreads across the pages difficult to do. I have just sent feedback to W&N saying exactly this.

btw2 I think my scanner is not working properly as it does not scan the true colours any more.