Taking Maru Godas’s ‘Pictorial Sketchbook with Gouache’ course

Feeling a bit rubbish after having Covid at the beginning of the year, it was lovely to immerse myself in an online Domestika course from Maru Godas. Her style is colourful and playful and I really enjoyed working my way through the exercises. Mixing up the gouache colours felt very therapeutic, relaxing and fun! The audio is in Spanish with English subtitles and apart from the exercise themselves, she talks about influences and inspiration. If you don’t know her work, I’d recommend you check it out. Here are some of the sketchbook pages I created during the course.

Summer Sketchbook Spreads - Part Two

Second part of my sketchbook spreads from the Summer months. 

Mostly London but a couple from Durham and Shoreham-by-Sea too. 

All watercolour and pen in Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.

Sussex wildlife

A series of B&W line drawings commissioned earlier this year for the Wiston Estate, a vineyard and winery in the beautiful Sussex countryside. They also have nature walks, bike trails and are opening a restaurant soon. 

Sharing sketching knowledge

It was lovely to be asked back to share some of my sketching knowledge with students studying Interior Design at London Metropolitan University this term. I gave two drawing workshops, the first, ‘An introduction to Urban Sketching for designers’ and the second, ‘Visual note taking on location.’

The venue for the second workshop was The Loom, a former wool storage warehouse originally built in 1889, which has now been converted into individual workspaces. It is nice to see how developers can restore and reuse existing buildings, retain lots of original features but still making them suitable for modern businesses. 

Here are a small selection of the students drawings.

We were kindly allowed access to some of the inside spaces but there is a café on the ground floor open to the public if you want to take a look yourself. It is a really fascinating area to walk around, with lots of the original industrial buildings and signage still standing.

 

USk Week 2021 in Intragna, Switzerland

It was lovely to be invited to spend time in the Italian part of Switzerland earlier this month and give two workshops as part of the inaugural USk Week in Intragna, a small hilltop village in the canton of Ticino. The event was hosted by Mario Leimbacher, with Vincent Desplanche and Johanna Krimmel teaching workshops too.

As well as lots of sketching, there were also visits to local restaurants, hikes across the stunning landscape plus free time in the afternoons. It was great to meet so many of the Swiss Urban Sketcher community and I was made to feel very welcome. Mario is planning future events so do get in touch with him if you’d like more information.

Here are some of my sketchbook spreads from the week, including another attempt at ‘doing a Swasky’ in drawing the very picturesque Intragna Piazza. I’ll get the hang of the corners one day!

I’m quite enjoying sharing my sketching knowledge with others so do get in touch if you are organising or hosting events and would like me to give a drawing workshop.