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.