In the pages of Manchester Sketchbook 2

Two of my drawings, I am happy to say, are included in the new book Manchester Sketchbook 2, which features the work of 36 artists from around the world who took part in the Urban Sketchers symposium in the city in the summer of 2016. Copies of the book – and the first Manchester Sketchbook – are on sale via the website of Simone Ridyard. My thanks to Simone for inviting me to have my work included in it.

A Ford Cortina for Florian Afflerbach

I've had my eye on this 1970 Ford Cortina, which is parked outside a house around the corner, for a while since I heard the dreadful news about Florian Afflerbach. Florian was a German architect involved with the Urban Sketchers movement who was killed in a traffic accident in May aged 35. He made sensitive pencil and watercolour works of cars, among other things. A tribute to him can be found on the Urban Sketchers blog. There's going to be an exhibition of car drawings by Urban Sketchers around the world as a tribute to him at next week's USk symposium in Manchester, and I'm taking this one.

I never met Florian, and didn't know him, but I feel that I got a bit closer to him by sitting on the kerb to draw this. My parents had a Cortina in the 1970s, and just to look closely at this crumbling example took me back. I admire Florian's drawings even more now too; this doesn't look anything like a Ford Cortina.

Drawing on air at the BBC

I was invited to BBC Broadcasting House in central London this weekend to take part in Radio 4's Saturday Live, to talk, along with Manchester-based artist Simone Ridyard, about urban sketching and the sketchcrawl phenomenon. It's an easy-going programme with live guests and prerecorded elements. Tracey Thorn of Everything But the Girl fame, environmental activist Laurens de Groot and I sat around the table with the presenters Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir for 90 minutes to be gently grilled.

After the contribution from Simone and me (about 15mins in), I drew the scene as the programme continued, one of which is now shown on the programme's website as a time lapse drawing, condensed into about a minute. It's loose, and everyone, the subjects included, can be forgiven for not recognising Laurens on the left and Tracey on the right. (I showed it to her later and told her she is shown as such a blur I was afraid she might sue: "Don't worry. I'm not a suer," she said.)

The time flew by, with chatter breaking out around the table every time we went to a prerecorded segment. And having a photographer looking over my shoulder as I drew was a bit distracting. The hexagonal desk was a mass of paper cups, sketchbooks, microphones, clocks, monitors and unidentifiable bits of electronic stuff, through which the two presenters weaved their way as if it was nothing more than a chat around a kitchen table.

There's a link to the programme here. Look out for the gallery of work by London Urban Sketchers, too.

BBC Radio 4: it's a beautiful thing.