Richard Bell's nature diary, South Yorkshire, Sunday 26 September 2010
I’VE
JOINED the
Sheffield
Sketchcrawl
for the
day and
our last
location
on a chilly
afternoon
is the Hubs,
a well-known
local landmark
built in
metal sheeting
and resembling
four curling
stones.
I always
find designed
objects
unsympathetic
to draw
–
things like
electric
kettles
and toasters
–
and this
has that
same designed
quality,
so I feel
that I’m
drawing
someone
else’s
artwork,
rather than
getting
absorbed
in my own.
It would be a like a poet copying from an existing poem but attempting to do it in his own words while still depicting the original poem. Sorry, for subject matter, especially on what is supposed to be a fun sketchcrawl, I don't like designed (having looked at other people's drawings, see link below, I now realise that I've been missing out! Other people can see the possibilities)
So, I turn round and draw the cityscape (above). This is much more my kind of thing. It's a kind of still life arrangement of buildings; it reminds me of a cluttered shelf in a kitchen. The large banner ‘STYLISH OFFICES TO LET’ draped across the rear-end of the block adds a touch of humour.
We
started
off the
day in the
Peace Gardens,
which are
on the site
of St Paul's
Church,
where my
granddad
–
my dad’s
dad - was
church-warden.
Just behind
me, there
was, until
a few year
ago, a branch
of what
started
as my mum’s
dad’s
business,
Swift &
Goodison.
This was
never my
home town
but the
City of
Sheffield
has a lot
of resonance
for me.
I was shy of drawing my fellow students at the natural form drawing course a couple of weeks ago, but here we’re in a public space, so I draw whoever comes along. The cartoon film The Illusionist (L’Illusioniste) recently made a big impression on me and I’d love to get something of that sense of atmosphere and storytelling into my drawings today. But of course I don’t! So I feel frustrated but looking back at these sketchbook pages now they seem perfectly acceptable as impressions of sketchers at work.
My fellow sketchcrawler sitting on the wall (top left) astonished me, he was sitting on a wall, apparently perfectly comfortable, in an open-necked shirt while I, wrapped in four layers, was feeling the chill penetrating deeper and deeper. ‘You must be from Sheffield?’ I guessed. He was, and apparently inured to the cold.
From the more or less static sketchers, I felt that I should move on to the passers-by, attempting to capture a character in the minute it took them to cross the Peace Gardens.
After
lunch we
were indoors
and able
to choose
from several
galleries
adjoining
the Winter
Gardens.
Of course
I headed
straight
for the
Ruskin Gallery.
The mutton-chop
whiskered
marble bust
of of John
Ruskin appeared
tense and
lost in
his thoughts
as we went
in but when
our little
group of
sketchcrawlers
left his
gallery,
heading
for the
Hubs, I'm
sure he
must have
been smiling,
with a twinkle
in his eye.
I'm sure that he would have approved of our sketchcrawl.
Left: medieval manuscript in the Ruskin Gallery
Links: Lynne Chapman, children's book illustrator, one of the organisers of the Sheffield Sketchcrawl, which she has mentioned in her blog where you can find (providing it's still online by the time you read this) a gallery of the drawings people did on the day. Many thanks to Lynne and to Tim Rose for organising the event.
The Sheffield Telegraph was just one of the local papers that ran an article on the Sketchcrawl . Reporter/photographer David Bocking quotes me: “If I was at home I’d be hunched over a computer or doing something else, so today is cordoned off,” says illustrator Richard Bell – adding, in James Bond fashion, “It gives you a licence to draw.”