Adventures In Urban Sketching Part 3
You won’t be surprised to hear that our biggest challenge when filming courses on location is the weather.
And boy, have we experienced the good old British weather in all its glory!
When filming the Urban Junkyard course and Robin Hood’s Bay we were blessed with glorious sunshine. But, our luck certainly ran out when it came to Sketch Wales.
As the rain pelted down during the Caernarfon Castle sketch, we were forced to postpone filming in the middle of the water colour stage, and take cover in a local bakery (with a cup of tea and a slice of cake, of course!).
But, instead of seeing this as a ‘disaster’ Ian used it as an opportunity to show you how to intelligently work with the elements, such as rain drops, and how to weave them into your sketches to add unique, natural effects to your work:
And it’s real world tips like these that you can only learn through watching an expert sketch on location (not cooped up in a cosy studio!).
Despite the weather issues in Sketch Wales, we did uncover a new four-legged shining star in Maizie the Welsh Collie! Maizie came along to most of our sketching workshops and even introduced her own brand of art…
The Amlwch Boat sketch was not only a cold and grey day of filming on a very wet and muddy beach…
…but Ian also had the challenge of sketching and teaching this workshop, as the tide slowly creeped towards us.
It was truly a race against time. We were losing light fast and none of us wanted to end up knee deep in the freezing Irish Sea, in the dark!
As Ian finished his preliminary sketch and laid it down to examine, Maizie wasn’t impressed. She felt that it needed a little bit more work, and so proceeded to trample her muddy paw prints across it to help Ian out!
Ian joked that it was actually better than his final sketch, but we think he was just being polite (after all, how can you be annoyed at this face…)!
INTERESTING FACT: The Farndon village workshop was actually the result of a catch up lunch with a gorgeous view! Ian just had to sketch it for you all.
In my next email, I’ll tell you about a surreal filming experience we had in London and I’ll introduce you to Ian’s partner in crime and one of the unsung heroes of all of our urban sketching courses; the man behind the camera!
Speak to you tomorrow.
