Monday Morning Moon Meeting

Monday Morning Moon Meeting. It's a confusing title, I know, but alliteration in headlines makes you look smarter.

Or is that not working? Maybe not.

In any case, we met Jon Moon for coffee at Costas coffee shop in Uxbridge's town centre. Jon is a consultant, an author, and a leading authority on document clarity and impact. His book, titled How to make an impact, is a regular in Amazon's top books on communicating and presenting. He and Robin have known each other for a while through email, so Jon came to Uxbridge to meet her in person and to chat.

Jon's a very cool guy, friendly, with lots of interesting conversation. We've planned to get together again before we return home. He lives closer in to London, 20 or 30 minutes from here.

Jon brought Robin's book, The Non-Designer's Presentation Book, for her to sign.

A good visit. Good coffee also. Or, to continue a theme, literally lovely lattes.

From the coffee shop we made the short walk to Sainsburys, bought a rolling cart full of groceries, and walked back to the flat.

Robin (on the wine aisle) with the rolling cart we use to drag groceries back to the flat (wine bottles are heavier than I noticed back home... when I was driving to the store and back).

Why don't we have these grocery carts at Albertsons in Santa Fe? They roll sideways as easily as back and forward. 

Sketches & Sketchers, Part Two

OK, I'm getting wild and crazy now: white chalk on black paper. 

At the end of the day we all took our drawings into another room, taped them to a wall, and held a brief exhibit. I can now say that I've studied Shakespeare and exhibited at the Battersea Art Centre, in London. I'm officially big-time.

This is either a cute, young London artist, or Hollywood Casting planted her here to play the part of a cute, young London artist. Notice the quintessential torn leggings... big Hollywood clue.

A very London experience. 

When drawing gets out of control...

I went to the other room to get my coat and bag. When I came back nearly all the drawings and people were gone. Must have sold everything really fast.

Thanks to BAC, London Drawing, and Spirited Bodies (they provided the models) for a memorable Saturday.

Sketches & Sketchers, Part One

There were two rooms to sketch in. The smaller room had a couple of models in it. The larger room had at least a dozen models posing all at once. Later in the day more models showed up and joined in. I stayed in the large room since there was more than I could draw anyway.

The variety of styles being used during the day-long sketch session was amazing. The photos below show some of the participants and some of the drawings. As you can see, some people get creative and experimental. London Drawing likes to encourage innovative, experimental, and creative stuff.

Me too, but mainly I just like to draw. And wish I could draw like Manet, Degas, and Toulouse Lautrec.

Very nice. I like this one a lot.

A mid-morning exhibition of sketches. 

Redhead model. 

When I got back to the flat and tried to photograph my drawings, the terrible lighting of the apartment made it impossible to get good photos of the sketches, which were originally drawn with black and white charcoal on pinkish-mauve colored paper. So I converted all the photos to sepia tone (above) to hide the weird color casts that were showing up in the photos. 

More of my drawings below (the sepia ones), but first, some of my favorites by other artists:

Back to old-school drawing (click an image to see a larger version):

The Battersea Floor

The Battersea Floor. Sounds like an epic poem, doest it? It's actually just the floor of the Battersea Art Centre building.

While I sketched upstairs, Robin was in the Battersea Art Centre lobby studying and reading. She noticed some very cool mosaic work on the lobby floor and shot these photos.

Mosaic bees were scattered about the floor. Robin asked a young man sitting behind the reception desk what is the history and significance of the bees. He looked at her with a puzzled look, as if to say "there's bees on the floor?" Predictably, he didn't have a clue why they were there. 

I wonder how many people walk on these bees without realizing they're walking on art.

The floor (along with the entire building) is a beautiful example of functional art. 

Fortunately, the BAC realizes the building is a treasure and has long range plans for restoration. The citizens of the area protested in 1965 when plans were made to tear down the building and replace it with a new library and a swimming pool. A local campaign was organized to save the building and turn it into a community arts center.

An intriguing photo of a slice of the BAC lobby, captured by Robin and her iPhone. 

Battersea Art Centre Saturday

A long, tiring day started with an early morning hike to the Tube station in 14° weather. That wasn't as bad as the hour long tube ride in an unheated train. Some trains were "faulty" and some closed for scheduled weekend engineer maintenance, so the trip took longer than it should have, and we had to change trains a couple of times due to the closures. By the time we got to the Battersea Art Centre, my fingers were numb and tingling, and Robin's toes were frozen.

The Battersea Art Centre is a very cool old building that's used for all sorts of events and performances. It was built in the late 1800s as the Battersea Town Hall, to house the offices that governed the Battersea Borough that was growing by leaps and bounds on the south bank of the Thames.

Waiting to change trains at a frigid outdoor train station, Rayners Lane.

After a tube and bus journey of nearly two hours, we arrive at BAC, frozen but in good spirits.

All the drawers gather in the BAC cafe space, waiting for someone from London Drawing to give us the day's agenda. There will be 20 to 25 models posing from 11:00 to 1:00 and from 2:30 - 5:00.

Robin spent the day in the lobby area, reading and studying. We went to lunch together during the lunch break. The Parisienne. A Parisian restaurant, in London, run by Mid-Eastern people. I had the All American breakfast. Just try to imagine how weird that turned out.

After an introduction by a man and woman from London Drawing, everyone heads upstairs to the sketching rooms.

Outside the BAC front entrance, there seems to have been a font accident. Or perhaps the remains of typographic performance art. Or maybe the beginning of the dreaded Helvetica invasion that has been prophesied in ancient texts. 

The model stage. They're taking a break now. 

Sketchers tape their drawings to a wall so everyone can get inspiration from the varied styles and techniques.

A great space for a large group.

Checking out each others drawings. There's a very wide range of styles, techniques, and drawing experience, but almost every drawing has some appeal.

An artist tapes her sketch to the wall.

I'll post more photos tomorrow of the days event, including some of the drawings. The London Drawing people are going to post photos of the sketch sessions and models in a couple of days. I'll link to that when they post it.

Tomorrow morning our flatmates, Wally and Maria, are going into London to audition as extras for the movie Les Miserables. Also the landlord is coming over to see if he can fix the clothes dryer in our flat. The excitement never stops.