Trains, Hats, Paninis and Palm Trees: Sketchcrawl Time Again!

The SketchCrawl team met again this weekend. We got together at Sheffield Midland Station on Sunday morning. 

We had a great turn-out, with some people coming from further afield to join us. Everyone was chatting excitedly and raring to go. 

We drank coffee in the Ritazza cafe in the forecourt for the first hour, sketching people, the station building and the views through the window. I warmed up on Matthew:

Then I did a quickie looking out at this lovely autumnal tree. I tried out the Inktense watercolour pencils Derwent gave us - they are really zingy and lovely and soft to use, although I've never worked with watercolour pencils before, so I need to do far more experimentation. 

It was a wonderfully bright, sunny day, but quite crisp. As I was finishing the sketch, I spotted Andrea, sitting out in the cold under the tree, drawing the fountains. There's dedication.

We had a couple more hours to sketch around the station itself. I decided to be brave and do the long view down the line, from the glass-sided footbridge. It was hard to tame: there was so much going on. But having such strong shadows to block in really helped me find a way to make something of the chaos of information-overload:

After that, I went outdoors myself, but I walked all the way down to the very end of platform 5, where I could sit in the sun, and painted the one at the top. It was surprisingly warm (despite discovering that I'd forgotten my polystyrene mat and so had to sit directly on the concrete platform).

We walked up to the Winter Gardens for lunch, where I thoroughly enjoyed scoffing a mozzerella, basil and tomato panini (on gorgeous olive bread). Matthew (who loves drawing food) couldn't resist painting his panini first, but I don't have that kind of patience when I'm hungry! 

I did a quick painting of a palm tree:

...but found I wasn't much in the mood for plants, so did a sketch of Tom next:

Who then did a drawing of me:

...drawing these hats in a shop window:

I also had a bash at the top of the Central Library building, looking out through the front windows of the Winter Garden. the light was still amazing:

We walked back down to the station and did at sketchbook sharing in the Sheffield Tap pub on platform 1. Some fantastic work was passed around. If you want to see some of it, take a look at the Sketchcrawl North page on Facebook.

We try and SketchCrawl at least once a month so, if you want to join us next time, drop me an email and I'll add you to our e-mail list, so you'll know when we are off again.