Looking back at the ASC Art House Open Studio in September 2019

In September the studios where I have space, organised an Open Studio event over a Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. There were 50+ creatives taking part and it was lovely to have the chance to show my work and working space. Many thanks to the team at ASC Art House Croydon for giving up their time to organise the event.

In the lead up to the event, I had a little bit of a tidy up! Even though I have had the space for a year now, I’m still working out the best place too have my desk and how to use the wall space as my unit is south facing so I get a lot of direct sunlight.

I decided to display some of the accordion sketchbooks which I’ve been using throughout the year and one of them was included in a group show held in the Art House foyer area.

On the Friday evening, we offered complimentary drinks and the Mayor of Croydon came along to make a speech and officially open the event. It was lovely to see so many people walking round the building, looking at the variety of work.

Saturday seemed more of a family time with lots of children amongst the visitors. It felt a very successful event and as a group we hope to hold another event in October 2020.

New studio space!

Lots of light!

It’s been almost two months since I moved into my new studio space. It’s still not Pinterest-ready (will it ever be?) but already it has helped me get more work done. It’s the first time that I’ve ever had a room of my own to work in. Over the years, I’ve worked mainly from home, either on the kitchen table or using a temporary desk in the front room. Most of the time this has worked okay but domestic restrictions mean that work has to be packed away at certain times and it’s difficult to separate work with home life.

Books and art materials 

I have tried a few other options. First sharing with local graphic designer which was great until rain kept on coming in and nothing seemed to be happening to fix the problem. I left there, moving to a desk space area on the top floor of an old building in Croydon Old Town. This worked okay but then the studio owner moved to a different venue and the new space didn’t really work for me. A desk space in a lighting designer’s studio was next. The space was okay with lots of natural light but it wasn’t the sort of place I’d like to stay on to work in the evening or at weekends.

Inspiration on the walls

Of course, the biggest concern from my point of view about renting space is the cost. So I was interested to hear about the new Artist Company Studios (ASC) being built in Croydon and the fact that they might be affordable for me. I’d heard about ASC from a couple of artists so had been on their email mailing list. Although I thought they would be quite a way out of town, I was pleasantly surprised when I went on the Open Day that they were quite close to transport links, had large windows and lots of extras including a communal kitchen and seating area. There is also a gallery area.

The Grand Entrance

On Friday the gallery holds its first exhibition, ‘40 degrees centigrade’ curated by Tabish Khan, art critic and Visual Arts Editor for The Londonist.

The PV will be open from 6 - 9pm. For more details, contact ASC by email at reception@ascstudios.co.uk or view their website.

I'm hoping the new space will allow me to be more productive so that I have time to experiment with new techniques too.

Croydon for Caffeine Addicts

I recently worked with Maddy from 'East Croydon Cool' to produce this black and white map of Croydon for caffeine addicts, highlighting a selection of the finest independent coffee stops in the town. Close-ups of some of the illustrations below.

There is a downloadable version on the East Croydon Cool website at https://eastcroydoncool.co.uk/maps/

My illustration process - Creating an illustrated map

Here is the finished map of Park Hill Park which, if you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen me working on earlier in the year. The park is only five minutes walk from the busy East Croydon Station and is a lovely place to spend a sunny lunch hour or have a break from the busy town centre.

Rough stage
I’ve put a series of images below showing how I worked through the process with the Park Hill Friends group who commissioned the piece. First stage was to create a black and white line rough based on the brief. I went round the park with them and took photographs of particular places that they wanted to be included.

B&W Rough

Creating the artwork
Once the rough had been approved, I moved on to the artwork stage. I painted each of the elements separately so that I didn't have to worry about the sizes being too fiddly to draw. I then scanned the images and put them together on Photoshop, placing each image on a separate layer so that I could move them around and make changes.

Additions and corrections

This is the first artwork I sent. You can see there are a few differences from the final one at the top. The newly instated cycle path had to be added, an addition road name plus more information relating to social media contact information.

Leaving Crocus Valey

A demolition site in the centre of Croydon has been the home to a pop-up saffron farm for the last two and a half years. The heritage project, initially started with a crowd funding campaign, was kept going by donations and an army of volunteers. It’s been a real community effort led by Ally McKinlay who had the idea in the first place, inspired by the legend that the town’s name originated as ‘Crocus Valley’.

These are the drawings I made on the last weekend before the developers took back the site. All the plants and containers were given away to community groups and schools with local people coming along to collect the rest. Some of the remaining gardening equipment and water tanks are being stored, in the hope that a new, more permanent site can be found in the future. I’m hoping to continue drawing there and follow the progress of the new concrete growth on the site, as four tower blocks take the place of the tiny corms.

Big red box

The container that housed a fabulous dance performance in Croydon this evening by Dance Umbrella.  Entitled 'Origami', the whole structure opened out with an amazing acrobatic performance by the solo dancer.

More info here - http://www.danceumbrella.co.uk/event/origami/

Last one before closing time

Still at the shopping centre...

Downstairs at the Whitgift

Up on the balcony

Stairway at the Whitgift Centre

Postcards

Glass ceiling

End of the Whitgift

Coffee break

Balconies

Reflections

Back to the Whitgift Centre

Croydon Creative Month

've been making some small concertina sketchbooks to take along to an 'Urban Sketching Drop-in' with myself and Nick Richards at Matthews Yard on Saturday 11th February, between 2 -4 pm. 

We will bring along our sketchbooks for you to look through, along with books about urban sketching and art materials for you to try out some drawing yourself. Both myself and Nick have both exhibited previously at Matthews Yard and found inspiration in Croydon's wide selection of architecture. It's a free event, no need to book, just turn up on the day.

Part of Croydon Creative Month. More details about all the events at https://www.facebook.com/events/636123746574085/

Whitgift Two