37th Worldwide SketchCrawl: The Big Draw at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

I was out SketchCrawling again last Saturday.

Our summer SketchCrawl at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park was such a success, they invited us back to do another day, this time in celebration of The Big Draw.

I admit, I was a little anxious about the weather: mid October is not usually the best time for sitting outside all day to draw. I wore my fleece-lined walking trousers, long woolly socks, a vest and long-sleeved T-shirt under my walking top, and carried a rucksack stuffed with a scarf, fleece, raincoat, fingerless gloves, hand-warmer: the works!

But, by pure chance, we had picked the very best day possible. It was so warm, I only occasionally wore my fleece, the rest stayed in the rucksack. The sky was a rich Mediterranean blue all day long and the bright sunlight really brought out the rich, autumn colours in the landscape: 

We had lots of new people turn up too, which was great. They came from as far afield as Hull in one direction and Birmingham in the other. 

This time, to add variety, we took a bus up the the far end of the park, to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition in the Longside Gallery: a fantastic space I had not seen before. 

I had a go at drawing the reflective piece at the top, but it was a bit of a nightmare. Apart from being incredibly complicated and continually changing as people moved around the gallery, I had to draw standing up to see the prettiest colours and keep absolutely still unless I wanted all the reflections to change yet again! So I took an easier option next and drew the wonderful view back over the park from the gallery's long back window:

Afterwards, we walked back through the middle of this view, stopping for more sketching near the lake (on the far side of my pink field). Then, after a picnic lunch under the trees, we sketched some of the permanent collection. I found a strange but beautiful piece tucked away in the woods. It was a couple of whippets being chased by a donkey, by Sophie Ryder (and made from galvanised wire, the same as her rabbit-woman I drew last time):

I was annoyed with myself for placing the sketch so badly on the page, so had another go while the paint from the first one was drying, although the afternoon was drawing in and I was somewhat distracted by the midges that had started to munch on my scalp!

We finished with the usual sketchbook-sharing and once again I was blown away by the exciting variety of approach. It's so much fun to see how other people have drawn the same thing as you, but got a totally different result. I always find it so inspiring.