No, not exactly a SketchCrawl this time. SketchJam is SketchCrawl's younger brother, so to speak. It's a brand new, musical idea that I tried on for size last night.Remember how the snow scuppered our chance to draw an orchestra recently? Well, I've been mulling things over with my good friend and fellow artist Martin Hinchcliffe (who also did this lovely painting). We've cooked up another way to draw live music.
SketchJam's world premier (!) started at the Cubana in Sheffield on Thursday evening, where we were entertained by soul and jazz from the 50s and 60s, played by Simon Peat on the Sax, with Joel White on vocals and keyboard.
It was wonderful, and I was bobbing up and down (while also trying to draw!) to all the old favourites I remember my mum and dad playing when I was young. Unfortunately though, as you can see from my sketches above, we couldn't really get close enough to the musicians, plus it was a bit dark and VERY warm, so we moved on after a bit, just down the road, to The Grapes.
Our merry band of seven sketchers, some old hands from previous SketchCrawls, but some new faces too, huddled happily over our sketchbooks and beer in a cosy side bar, drawing and painting the locals.
We thought we had missed our chance, yet again, on the music front, but we discovered at 9.30 that we had struck gold: a knot a old folks in the corner suddenly whipped out guitars and spent the rest of the evening taking turns singing wonderful folk music!
We had a smashing evening and all drew and painted our socks off until about 11.00. It was so casual and friendly, bantering with the singers and generally chilling out to music and drawing. What could be better?
We had a smashing evening and all drew and painted our socks off until about 11.00. It was so casual and friendly, bantering with the singers and generally chilling out to music and drawing. What could be better?
6 comments:
Lynn, How wonderful to have a sketchbook group to do these wonderful wc sketches. I'm teaching myself and was wondering if theres any dvd's or books on how to paint loose like this with people.
Have a wonderful day and this blogis great to come to,
Linda
I love the watercolour of the man with the guitar on a green chair (The Grapes) - very lively, and showing a real character! Worth framing I should think.
What an amazing eve and fabulous sketches.
Next time I'm home in UK I will definitely contact you to join in something like this.
What a great evening, music sketching and friends! Amazing how you get so much into the watercolour sketches considering what I imagine was poor lighting. Too far for me to come unfortunately.
Thanks guys! Yep, a smashing night.
Linda - don't know about books etc, because I'm just feeling my way myself, but I'm using urbansketchers.com and Flickr to just look at what other people are doing and get inspiration to try stuff. Having had a couple of beers obviously loosened me up as well :-)
Such a great idea - I agree, what could be better - you can feel the relaxed, laid back atmosphere in these sketches. I'd love to join you sometime if I could!
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