London Sketch Crawl

Yesterday, a gorgeous sunny and breezy day, I went to Let's Draw London!, a sketch crawl organised by Urban Sketchers London. I didn't count how many we were, but it was quite a big group. We met at Temple and wondered off with our sketchbooks to then meet again later and show each other our drawings.
Although I've always dreamt of being an artist, I didn't start doing any art until the end of 2008. These past four years have been an exciting, scary, frustrating and elating journey. I spent hours on flickr looking at other people's work, I bought tons of books and art supplies, I enjoyed working with collages, mixed media, biros, paint, canvas, found paper, anything with which I could create images. But drawing on location is a truly magical experience, and to become an Urban Sketchers correspondent one day would be a fantastic achievement. I realise how lucky I am that I have discovered a new passion that will keep me busy for the second (and third and fourth) part of my life.

This man was sleeping on a bench oblivious to all the sketchers gathered in Gough Square

to sketch (or not)

I love sketching, but I have to get over a wall of inertia ever so high. I don't know what it is. Once I get going, I'm fine, I enjoy it, but I seem to find a lot of excuses: not the right weather, nothing to draw, too many art supplies or not enough. In search for the perfect pen that does all the work... After spending a couple of days at the sea describing in detail to an artist friend all the reasons why I should sketch and all the equally important reasons why I avoid it, I've decided that I should stop being a pain and get on with it. So here it is, today's sketch. A pair of scissors (just about one of the hardest things to draw free-hand). Not just any scissors. These are my grandmother's, with an art nouveau butterfly design. Tomorrow we'll see. There's plenty of horribly difficult things to draw all around us...

Good book bad book

I've always hated the expression 'a good book', as if anyone wanted to relax and enjoy a bad book. Nevertheless, this is a good book. The author takes you on a complete journey of the human nature starting and coming back to maps, and that is pretty clever. He touches on things that I never particularly thought about, like what are the reasons behind collecting, and he quotes authors who've written on the subject. They say that collecting comes from animistic beliefs, it's a way of surrounding yourself with sacred objects that protect you and inspire you. I wonder if this explains why I keep on buying art supplies that I often never use, but revere as if they held the key to my creativity.

My shelves full of art supplies

Now here's a bad book: it is not really a bad book, just sad for me, as I tend to read every book as if it held a piece of a truth higher than mine, as if it was right and I were wrong. It's just the opinions and samples of various artists' sketchbooks and most of the artists seem to see sketches as means to an end. Yet, in my opinion, the means are way more interesting and alive than the ends. Also I seem to be attracted like a magnet to the pencils/charcoal/marker isles of art shops. Those art supplies are my idols, and yet I seem to be told here that they're just ephemeral, that only oil paints or acrylics are the real thing that makes finite, complete artworks. 

It makes me cry on my printer, who (sic) is working hard with me to preserve those marks created using transitorial, short lived instruments of unfinished creations.

 

Leaving the past behind

A little doodle I did on the back of an envelope with a biro and a dried-up marker sparked all sorts of thoughts in me. I wasn't thinking of anything in particular when I was drawing but I was wondering why this guy looked sad, because all of my images are usually jolly. But then, still for no logical reason, I started sketching the house that I see from my kitchen window. And the thought occurred to me that this guy, who is young in age or in spirit, is leaving his childhood home and is not ready to be happy yet. But butterflies are showing him the way and the sun is shining.