A sketching weekend in Liverpool

 

Alongside a  group of Urban Sketching friends from London, Manchester and Leeds, I headed off to Liverpool for a drawing weekend in August. We had a great itinerary drawn up by Karen Jones which centred on three distinct areas of the city: the riverside, the cultural area and the Georgian Quarter. Having never visited the city before and not knowing quite what to expect, I was really impressed by the grand architecture.

I choose to experiment with the materials I had received in the USk London Anniversary ‘goodie bag’ a month earlier. These included colour sheets, watercolours and pencils from brands which I had not used before. I also took along large sheets of paper (A2-ish size), a big brush and a tube of white gouache.

As far as my experience of using the new materials, yes, the results can be random and unexpected with things going wrong. But by playing with the different materials, the ‘mistakes’ can often lead to discovering effects that can be useful and surprising. I found myself using a quite different colour palette to usual. Working on the larger single sheets of paper was awkward in the sense of carrying them around and sharing work at the throwdown was tricky, especially in windy conditions.

Many thanks to the USk Liverpool chapter for meeting up with us on the Saturday too!