Friday 8 March 2024

St James's Piccadilly Tuesday 26th March

 Our next outing is to St James's Church, 197 Piccadilly, W1J 9LL on Tuesday 26th March. Meet at 11 am.

This is a Christopher Wren designed church with a font and reredos by Grinling Gibbons. So lots of architectural history. The church also has a history of community outreach and social activism.

Their website is sjp.org.uk and it includes a virtual tour of the church.

There is a food market outside in front of the church on Tuesdays, so lots of choice for lunch. Loos in the church.

They are expecting us and we can stay until 4pm if we want.

Please no easels but water colours are fine, but be careful.

26th March is in Holy Week, so please respect the Church and only talk in low voices. We are generally a quiet group any way, so this shouldn't be a challenge!

Monday 4 March 2024

Our visit to 'The Place'

Thirteen artists made their way to The Place, which is the home of the London School of Contemporary Dance to sketch a second year contemporary dance class. 

As anticipated this was hard work due to the constant movement of the subjects. However we rose to the occasion and produced a great body of work. Great work from the dancers, the artists were very impressed.

Some artists responded to the request to limit the number of pics sent in for publishing on the blog to two, so a special thank you, as it is hard for your organisers to collate a large number of pics. However there are some great pics, so thank you artists and thank you dancers, for your inspiration. 

The next outing will be on Tuesday 26th March, but the venue is yet to be confirmed. Watch this space.

Pictures below from:

Deborah van der Beek






Diana Marshall



Alison Gardiner















Do Burgess









Janet Payne


Patricia Walters












Peter Colley












Ruijan Hu











Sinead O'Reilly





Sue Lees













Tricia Sharpe








Sue Loder











Thursday 1 February 2024

Visit to the Place on Tuesday 27th February

 

The Place have very kindly allowed us back to sketch a contemporary dance rehearsal. We went around this time last year and enjoyed the session, although it was hard work to draw moving figures.

The Place is the home of the London Contemporary Dance School and is very near to Euston Station.

The address is 17 Duke's Place, London WC1H 9PY but the entrance is round the corner in Flaxman Terrace. Please be there promptly at 10:30 for the rehearsal which starts at 10:45 and ends at 12:15. Late comers will be severely frowned upon.

Here are two pictures from last year.


From Christine Khwaja






From Priscilla Worley

Wednesday 31 January 2024

Drawing the Haydn Chamber Orchestra, January 27 in St Michael's, Highgate

Approaching 20 sketchers came to St Michael's Church, Highgate on Saturday, 27 January, to draw and paint Islington's prestigious Haydn Chamber Orchestra in rehearsal, thanks to a very kind invitation via Islington Art Society member, Alison Glaister.  (Three people went to the previous night's rehearsal in St Andrew's, Thornhill Square.)    People who had not been to St Michael's before were very impressed with the striking Evie Hone stained glass Last Supper in the East Window, but mostly managed to focus their art on the orchestra, whose music was breathtaking. 

The conductor was the distinguished Paul Daniel, and the piano soloist the equally distinguished Charles Owen.   The pieces were Schumann's Piano Concerto, Brahms' Symphony number 3, and Siegfried's Rhine Journey, from Wagner's Gotterdammerung.  It was such a treat and a privilege to be so close to such beautiful music, we are so grateful to the orchestra for allowing us to overlook them during their practice runs.   It was also good to see the love the musicians have for the intricacies of the music, and how Paul Daniel finessed the interpretation of certain phrases.

One or two artists went up to the galleries and took in the whole ensemble and church, but most people focused their concentration on selected performers.   The removal of the Steinway piano after the Schumann was a bit of a blow for some, but they soldiered on without its substantial presence in the middle of their compositions. 

We all enjoyed ourselves enormously.   It was such a delightful afternoon.  We thank the Haydn Chamber Orchestra for giving us the opportunity to sketch them.

Please enjoy looking at our images below.   Any further submissions will be added in later.

Image above by Daniel Lloyd-Morgan


Two images above by Ruijun Hu  



 



Six images above by Vanessa Whinney 


Two images above by Ann Kozlowski-Hunt 


Two images above by Maureen Bocking                                                                                                                                                                                                          


Three images above by Lorraine Peacock



Two images above by Janet Payne



Two images above by Do Burgess   



Three images above by Peter Colley

Image above by Christian Cook                                                                                                                 
 
                                                                                                    

Image above by Frank Burgess



Two images above by Alison Gardiner



Four images above by Janet Perkins





Three images above by Penny Spelling


Two images above by Cathy Burkinshaw





















                                                                                     







                                                                                             


Three images above by Sue Lees

 And finally, Pauline Cushnie sketched the sketchers: