SketchCrawl at the Sheffield Fayre

Sunday's SketchCrawl turned out a rather more intimate affair: instead of the usual band of about 25, only 3 of us showed up! Maybe people were away for the bank holiday weekend. 

Undeterred, we decided to draw all the more, to make up for the others.

The theme of the day was 'living history' with a focus on battle re-enactments. I was fascinated by the people in various period costumes. 

As you can see, there were loads of soldiers from the American Civil War. When we first arrived, I wandered through the Confederate camp, where they were preparing for battle with the Unionists:

Once they got going and moved onto the battlefield it was harder, as they were much further away, but I did my best for a bit:

Members of the public often hung around behind us, watching what we were up to at a slight distance. Some were brave and said hello.

We decided to have a go at the women folk next. While the battle was raging (it made a right old row!) wives sat in the encampments, cooking and sewing etc, but all accurate to the period. These were spinning:

Everyone was so incredibly friendly: very interested in what we were up to and keen to share their obvious passion for the history. In the end, I spent at least as much time chatting to the re-enactment folks as I did putting pencil to paper! 

But I love all that - the way sketching in public draws me into conversation with everyone and anyone is a big part of the joy of the thing for me. 

I chatted for ages with the lady below (we've skipped to the medieval period now) and her lovely son, who was doing A levels prior to art college. I used my line over colour technique again:

The medieval folk were archers:

They were a nightmare to draw, as you only stay in position for a milli-second, so I had to wait and keep coming back to the same sketch over several arrows. Great costumes though (the lady with the laced-up back is the same one I painted above):

There were also Romans strutting their stuff, demonstrating battle technique:

They were really hard though, as they didn't even stay still for a milli-second!

Around lunchtime, we had a bit of a wander about and discovered a tent full of the usual prize-winning carrots and marrows. There were flowers too. I'm not much good at painting flowers, so I concentrate on this man and his wife, who grew fuchsias. The man was also a judge (as in flowers, not black gown and wig).

It's a shame more people didn't get to enjoy it with us, but you can see other folk's sketches here. 

One reason we may have had a low turn-out, is that we are off again tommorow - that's Thursday 1st Sept - for a Tour de Sketch. If you want to join in, come to Parsley Hay Cycle Hire near Buxton in Derbyshire, post code: SK17 ODG. Be there by 10.30am. 

We will also be doing another regular SketchCrawl on Sept 10th. Busy period: those pencils are smoking!