Twelve of us came to The Charterhouse close to Smithfield Market, on a wet morning, so we definitely had to sketch indoors. Visitors are now allowed into the interesting old chapel and a hall (as well as a small museum about the history of the complex of buildings where we discovered that thousands of black death casualties had been buried on the site), and this is where we worked. There were a great many arches in the fabric of the building, and many architectural details, as well as a number of small scuptural motifs, a gilded altarpiece, some lovely stained glass, and various paintings. One person picked out two heads from the stained glass, and reproduced them en grisaille, someone else caught a painting's essence and movement in marker pen. Other people focused more on the overall aspects of the building, and as we were quite closely confined together this time we have a comprehensive impression of our day's venue.
We very much appreciated the opportunity to sketch in such a beautiful historic building and we are most grateful to The Charterhouse organisation for allowing us to do so.
On a dry day there would be a lot to paint outside, as the buildings are gorgeous, there is a smart new knot garden, and Charterhouse Square itself has views through the trees to ancient gateways, etc etc. Another visit surely beckons.
