SketchCrawl in Buxton, Welcoming Di from Oz!

It's a busy period on the SketchCrawl North front: this weekend we went out on the first of 3 SketchCrawls, taking place on 3 consecutive Saturdays. We normally do once a month but sometimes opportunities are too good to miss. This one was in celebration of fellow-sketcher Di being in the UK for a visit from Australia.

Now, anyone reading this from the UK will know that Saturday was not the best advertisment for a British summer. It was certainly freezing in Buxton! But were we downhearted? Well, a bit shivery round the edges perhaps, but not for a moment deterred.

We prised ourselves from the warmth of the meeting-place cafe and braved the Pavilion promenade first, where I did the sketch at the top. It was cold though. Even in a big coat and fingerless gloves.

We warmed up in the Pavilion Gardens - a glass house with a big fish pond - where we discovered an unexpected treat: the busking French horn player above, who was really good and let us all draw him. Actually, he probably did rather well out if us, as we thought it only right to pop money in his hat afterwards.

We had lunch back at the cafe, then, as it was still pretty nippy outside, set off for the art gallery and museum, where I did the sketch above. It proved rather more complicated than I'd expected, in fact, I rather wished I hadn't begun!

I decided to brave the outside again before we finished, so drew from a bench on the street just outside the gallery, looking across the road at the park opposite where John and Les, braver still, had been sketching since lunch (brrrrrr.....).

We scuttled off to our cosy corner of the cafe again for the sharing session. Once again, everyone did lovely sketches and it was fun to see all the different interpretations of the French Horn player. As always, you can see some of the other sketches from the day at SketchCrawl North.

A big thanks to Andrea Joseph for organising the day and for Di for travelling all the way up to Buxton to meet us. Hope the rest of your trip goes well Di (and things warn up a bit!)