Sketchcrawls are GO!

Saturday was Sheffield's 2nd Sketchcrawl. I arranged it to coincide with International Sketchcrawl Day and this time we drew in and around the Weston Park Museum.

Around 25 - 30 people had a go at some point, most of whom didn't know each other previously. We had a great time: it felt like real decadence, allowing ourselves a whole day to do nothing but enjoy the pleasure of drawing and meeting new people.

We started with a quick coffee in the cafe, then explored the museum itself, which was stuffed with all manner of interesting paraphernalia. I really enjoyed a morning of drawing the sort of thing I'd not sketched since art college.

There was so much to choose from, I hardly knew where to start. As well as all the glass cabinets, we discovered you could pull out drawers of spiders, beetles, butterflies, tiny skulls...

Most people were drawn to this gorgeous woolly rhino at some point though:


I'd definitely like to return and draw some more when I have a free afternoon.



The forecast was for a nice afternoon so, after our packed lunch, we went out into the adjoining park. The morning's bright sky was immediately replaced with brooding, black clouds.

I walked down to a tiny river and sketched these few bits of ducks and pigeons for all of 5 minutes, before the rain came, suddenly and with a vengeance! I got very damp racing back across the grass to a little shelter, which luckily had a bench from where I could paint the lovely autumnal colours of the park:

The sun came out again after a bit, but I stayed where I was, as I had a nice view across to the bandstand:

I shared the bench with another sketchcrawler, Ann:

It got very chilly though, so at 2.30 we scurried back into the museum and had a final 40 mins of stuffed animals, to warm up a bit:

I was slightly disappointed that we had dwindled to only half a dozen by the time we set off to the pub down the road, but we arrived to find at least a dozen more sketchcrawlers who had sneaked off earlier!

This time we sat in a big circle, with all the sketchbooks moving round methodically, so we all got to see all the great work we had produced. If you would like a peek too, I'm posting sketches and photos in the gallery as they come in. We also now have a Flickr group where sketchcrawlers can post their own photos.



I'm hoping that those sketchcrawlers who have the means, will also post their images to the official Sketchcrawl website, to show the world that Sheffield has arrived!