I saw a friend recently, who said "what have you been up to? Just going from café to café?" And, you know, from my drawings, it could look like that is all I do.
I do enjoy drawings in cafes though. They seem to combine all my favourite things; people, food and stuff, whilst being (mostly) warm and dry.
It's particularly useful, too, should you have forgotten to take your sketchbook out with you, if the café has paper place mats. I commend Tampopo for this. I managed to dig out an orange felt tip pen from the bottom of my bag for this one. I believe all cafés should use paper placemats. When I'm Prime Minister I will make it law.
One of my all time favourite cafes is the Plaza in Stockport. This place is an absolute hidden gem in a grey concrete city.
It was built in 1932 and the café has pretty much stayed unchanged since then. It's like being on set of a Poirot film. Really very beautiful.
Plus, whoever was in charge of casting, has done a great job with the staff. Perfectly drawable café in every way.
Then, the other day, we found a new café. I love it when that happens - when you find a new good café. Because, yes, I like a drawable café but the food is just as important.
And this one in
Eyam 'plague village' ticked both boxes. I'll be returning. Next time, I'll sit in a different place, for a different view to draw.
And so to today. The last café before Christmas.
But just to prove that I'm not always just sat around a table eating and drawing here's a something I did at work...
Oh.
Merry Christmas folks.
If you've followed my work in the past, you may know that a favourite subject matter of mine is collections. I've drawn collections of keys, badges, matchboxes, pens, buttons and souvenirs to name but a few. I've drawn souvenirs of all kinds, like in the drawing above, which comes from an entire sketchbook of collection drawings. Well, recently I've been commissioned by
Greater Manchester Museum Group to create four drawings based on their collections from four of their museums.
I'm so thrilled about getting this gig. I've always wanted to draw museums' collections. I used to dream that I'd get a job cataloguing them all. It would be my perfect job, but unfortunately photography happened and then computers and so the call for museum collection illustrators and cataloguers waned. But, anyway, now I have the opportunity. My problem is how do you make just one drawing from each museum?
Well, firstly we narrowed it down by choosing the four museums from Greater Manchester's 21 venues. The first was
Stockport's Hat Works Museum which is the building in the picture above. I already knew of, and love, this place. In fact we did a sketchcrawl there just a few weeks ago. It contains everything you need to know about hat making and the most amazing hats. But, not only do I get to visit the museums, but I also got the opportunity of looking through their archives and storage. This has been such a privilege, rooting through the stores, holding history (and antique top hats) in my hands.
The second collection I'll be drawing is the Egyptology collection from
Bolton Museum. They have an impressive collection of Egyptology artefacts. Unfortunately, I didn't get the best photos from that trip but I did get a sketch of a dinosaur before I left the building!
My third collection is from the natural History collections of
Oldham Museum. I spent the best few hours with the curator, down in the cellar archives, surrounded by so many treasures of nature, whilst being educated on bugs and butterflies and birds nest. Actually, that too has been another joy and privilege of this whole experience, learning about, not just Natural History, the social history of this region and about the collectors. Learning from passionate people.
Again, I managed to sneak some sketching in before leaving the building. Well, what else do you do when waiting for the rain to stop?
Today was my final visit and final collection. For that I went to the
Museum of the Manchester Regiment to view their medal collections. I wasn't quite prepared by how touching an experience that would be. I shed a tear or two reading the heart breaking stories of the soldiers who lost their lives.
So, that's what I'm working on right now. My drawings were commissioned by the Museum Group for a new online shop they are building, which is coming soon. Very soon. Which reminds me, I don't have time to sit here blogging, I've got (a lot of) work to do.....
Oh, and unbeknownst to me, and quite coincidentally, this is actually
Museum Week 2015. So Happy #MuseumWeek one and all. Go visit a museum because museums are great places.
Nat drawing in London
So, I've been nominated to do this post-three-drawings-a-day-for-five-days thing that's going around
Facebook at the moment. Have you come across it? I'm not sure if it's just on Facebook, perhaps it's doing the rounds on the blogs too? I think it's quite a fitting that at this time, with recent horrific events in Paris, that our screens and social networking are being filled with illustrations and drawings by people who love illustration and drawing.
Kate drawing in Sheffield
So, I was nominated by
Katherine Tyrrell. I'm sure many of you will know her blog
Making A Mark. If you don't you really should
check it out. It's ridiculously informative, on all sorts of topics for artists and people making their way in the industry. I've learnt so much from it. Katherine also has a new book out and a few of my illustrations feature in it. The book is called 365 Tips for Drawing and Sketching, you can read more about it
HERE.
Miriam drawing in Buxton
Anyway, the three drawings above are my sketches for the first day of the challenge. It seemed apt to start with sketches of people sketching. Plus, I seem to have been doing an awful lot of that recently. This little sketch of Miriam, above, is one of my own personal favourite sketches. I'm particularly pleased that I did it with such few lines, without over working it, as I often do. Plus, I managed a real likeness - which is hard to do. But then, you wouldn't be able to tell that if you don't know Miriam.
But hey, while I'm at it, whilst I'm posting sketches of people sketching, I might as well include these two, below, that I made last weekend. They are from a sketchcrawl I attended, in Stockport, on Saturday. Emily was our youngest sketchcrawler at 7 years old.
Emily drawing in pink
Here's the thing about sketching with other people; you can learn something new from each and every one. No matter what their ability or level and no matter what their age. From Emily I learnt about the two pencil technique. Or, at least, she helped me remember it. I always did stuff like that when I was a kid. And, now I've been reminded of it, I'll be using it as a big kid too.
Emily drawing in blue
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