Next Art in the Park sketching outing: Wednesday 17 May at 3 pm at Canonbury Square N1

Please note corrected date!

Our next outing is on Wednesday 17 May at 3pm to Canonbury Square N1.   The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art is on the corner with New North Road (39a Canonbury Square), we suggest gathering outside initially.   We will meet at 3pm so that artists can go on seamlessly to the evening IAS-sponsored talk on Giacomo Balla at the Estorick, starting at 6pm.  The Estorick is focusing on the futurist painter Balla with a major exhibition this spring, details are here  There is a cafe and a garden in the Estorick which are open to the public.   Map and full location details can be seen here

Canonbury Square itself has been nicely landscaped and there are plenty of benches, but some of these have suffered from birds, so people may want to bring sketching stools. Canonbury Square is a good example of a typical Islington Georgian Square. George Orwell lived in one of the houses for three years. The sixth form centre for Northbridge House is just round the corner and is based around Canonbury Tower which dates back to Tudor times. The surrounding buildings used to be the Tower Theatre. Upper Street with its shops and cafes is just round the corner. So enough estate agent talk and let's get drawing!

Janet's phone for the day is 07815 772857. 

If you wish to come on to the Giacomo Ballo talk, please could you let the IAS know by 12 May preferably to islingtonartsociety@hotmail.co.uk otherwise tel:  020 8348 8728 (no answer please just leave a message).

 

 

Estorick Collection

ART IN THE PARK VISIT TO THE HORSES OF GOODMAN'S FIELDS, ALDGATE, 25 MAY

 The end of April proved to be not quite as warm as we had hoped, but this did not deter six artists from our planned sketching trip to Goodman's Fields, which is just off Leman Street.  Goodman's Fields is now a landscaped courtyard with sensational horse sculptures by Hamish Mackie, in the midst of a new housing development by Berkeley Homes. In the eighteenth century there were two theatres here, and though they are long gone, the district still has a just out of the centre of London edginess to it. 

We braved the cold and the noise from the neighbouring building site to produce some exciting drawings and watercolour sketches and then dived into the local pastry shop for cups of hot coffee and sandwiches.


 We took a shine to the horses, and hope to return in a future summer when the building work is finished, and the horses are prancing in their rushing streams, as they were designed to do.

The next outing is to Canonbury Square. Meet at 3 pm on Wednesday 17 May and then on to to the IAS talk on Giacoma Balla at 6 pm in the Estorick in Canonbury Square. More details to follow on the blog page for May.

ART IN THE PARK:  GOODMAN’S FIELDS, LEMAN STREET, E1

As we did not have sketch day in March, we have decided to have a second outing in April.

Our next Art in the Park gathering will be on Tuesday 25 April when we are going to Goodman’s Fields, Leman Street, Aldgate E1.    The attraction of this swanky new development,  which has various areas of  smart public space and architectural planting, is the half-a-dozen galloping horse sculptures:
https://hamishmackie.com/goodmans-fields-horses/ 

They offer unusual artistic possibilities, and you might produce some work which would be of interest to visitors to  the IAS’s June exhibition at the Espacio Gallery which is not a great distance away.

The nearest tube is Aldgate East, though Aldgate is walkable.   Goodman’s Fields is on the eastern side of Leman Street and the geography of the area can be seen here under the Local Area tab at the top of the page: https://www.berkeleygroup.co.uk/new-homes/london/aldgate/goodmans-fields

We will meet at 11 o’clock in the main Plaza of Goodman’s Fields, where the horses are.   We suggest that you bring sketching stools to supplement the stone benches.   There are various pubs in Leman Street where we can have lunch/find a loo, or you might prefer to bring some sandwiches.   If it is wet it will be possible to sit under various overhanging parts of the new buildings.

We look forward to seeing you there.   Sue's telephone number is 07975 864142 if you arrive and cannot find anyone!

IAS outing to Covent Garden

On a lovely sunny spring day 12 IAS artists and friends met in Covent Garden outside St Paul's Church to sketch. Undeterred by the entertainer in Union Jack boxer shorts and nipple tassels we settled down to do some serious work. 

Diane Umemoto (an IAS guest) sold a piece, here is what she said: 'We were sitting at a café opposite the musicians so we could enjoy the music while sketching and eating. Ann chatted up the fellow sitting at the next table while I was off somewhere, and he offered to buy the chalk painting she'd just begun. Since it "wasn't ready yet," she turned him down. We all had lunch, Ann returned to her drawing. When the fellow got up to leave, he asked if he could buy my sketch. "Huh? Well, okay." [Ann's always saying, Well, that's what we do, isn't it?"] How much? "Uh, twenty?" Hmm. Ten? "Okay, fifteen." We figured out how to cut it out of the big sketchbook - and put our earnings toward lunch!'

There was a lot of activity, many tourists, entertainers including a uni-cyclist, opera singers, serious musicians and of course outdoor café culture and markets. It was great fun, very colourful, with a choice of architecture or people as subject matter, very amusing and certainly not quiet. We met up at lunch time to show our work and compare notes. 

The next outing will be to the horse sculptures in Goodman's Fields near Aldgate. Details will be posted on the blog shortly.