Albert's Chop House, Manchester

This is my final urban sketch from our group sessions this year. It's of the Memorial Hall, Albert Square, Manchester - remembered by Mancunians more fondly as the Square Albert (pub). Recently and beautifully refurbished by architects Ombler Iwanowski, and now Albert's Chop House - companion to the celebrated Sam's and Mr Thomas' Chop Houses. A welcome addition to Manchester hostelries, but I digress! Because it was so bitterly cold, I sat indoors, in the adjacent Slug and Lettuce and drew what I could see through the window. The sketch took about an hour, maybe just over. I wanted to make it quite jolly with splashes of bright watercolour - Tampopo's red signage and blue signposts. You can see the window frames and brick arches I am looking through.

In case this is my last post of 2012, and that depends very much on wi-fi in Cornwall...I make the long trip south tomorrow to Rock, near Padstow. To anyone reading this, I wish you all the very best for the new year, and hope you are having a lovely festive break.

Merry Christmas!

Couple of quick Manchester views

Drawn quickly whilst out urban sketching. Both took about 20 minutes including watercolour. Any Manchester people reading this, hopefully should recognise the views..?

Albert Square 2, German Market

Albert Square 2, German Market, a photo by simoneridyard on Flickr.

And another Venice sketch

This sketch was completed in two sessions, in the morning enroute to the Venice Architecture Biennale and then finished in the late afternoon. It is a view taken from the Riva Degli Schiavoni looking towards the island of San Giorgio. You can see glimpses of sunset through the bridge, which I've tried to capture in the sketch. The light faded fast and I could have done with more painting time before dusk! It seems a little unfinished.

Here is a photograph and the sketch taken from approximately the same viewpoint.

Another Venice sketch...

Venice 3, a photo by simoneridyard on Flickr.

'The Art of Urban Sketching' a book review

Here is a link to a well-written book review by my twitter friend Anna Gibb of the Scottish architectural practice Paper+Architects. The book is 'The Art of Urban Sketching (drawing on location around the world)' by Urban Sketchers founder, Gabi Campanario. After various twitter conversations...tweets and retweets, Anna asked if I would say a few words about my experiences of urban sketching, bearing in mind I am fairly new to it, and have recently set up an informal Manchester group.

Anna kindly included some of my comments in the article:

http://futurecities.org.uk/2012/11/29/the-world-one-sketch-at-a-time/

If you are interested in joining us, do visit our facebook group and flickr pages:

Manchester School of Art Urban Sketching group

Manchester Urban Sketching group flickr site