Vauxhall, London: when things go wrong

There are probably — in fact, I know there are — lovely bits of Vauxhall tucked away behind the transport maelstrom in its centre. Buses, trains and cars battle it out. A helicopter even fell from the sky here recently, with tragic consquences. Cyclists have to take a back seat, to pick a bad metaphor. It's a landscape that has gone very wrong, and yet it's somehow very appealing to draw.

Gabi Campanario's Week in Sketches

Drop in on Gabriel Campanario's The Week in Sketches, which features a selection of drawings from around the world. One of mine is among today's [when it was called The Day in Sketches], Tuesday 18 June — along with some by my favourite sketchbookers.




www.theweekinsketches.com

Sketchbook show in Victoria, Canada

Canadian urban sketcher Matthew Cencich has curated a small show of sketchbooks at a local library in Victoria, British Columbia, and included a couple of my London sketchbooks among those by six other international artists: Gabriel Campanario (Seattle), Virginia Hein (Los Angeles), Sigrid Albert (Vancouver), Luis Ruiz (Malaga), Kumi Matsukawa (Tokyo) and Matthew Cencich (Victoria).

All the books are around A5 size, so it is good to see the drawings at their actual size, rather than as variable images on our screens and tablets. And I can't help thinking that libraries, those most fantastic of places, are a great place to exhibit sketchbooks.

The books are showing at the Oak Bay Library, 1442 Monterey Avenue, Victoria, BC, until 30 June.  There's a post by Matthew about the display on the Urban Sketchers blog.

Cycling along the Northumberland coast to Scotland

From the National Cycle Network Route 1 along the Northumberland coast

As it happens, I did use quite a bit of the kit I took on my recent cycling trip, urged on by a tweet sent by Gabi Campanario: "We all need freedom from the tyranny of our most common sketching tools." I usually take a pen and a sketchbook and find that this is more than enough, but I squeezed a few more things into the panniers last week, and this had a liberating effect. Sometimes things can seem more complicated than they really are.

The view from room 2 at the Linton Hotel, East Linton, Scotland

The National Cycle Network Route 1 between Newcastle and Edinburgh is great, with sections off-road and never too far from the sea. Around the Druridge Bay Country Park, with the sun shining, it was spectacular. The only "traffic" and sense of urgency came from birdspotters — on foot — who were on their way to see a great reed warbler that had been blown off course and spotted nearby. The Northumberland coastline is fantastically unspoilt and free from major inclines. The wind turning around to blow from the north didn't help — pedalling downhill isn't what you expect to have to do — but the rain held off, and the pub lunches and the occasional pit-stop in a cafe en route helped keep us going.

The Shoreline cafe, Craster, Northumberland

There was even time before the train home from Edinburgh for a quick whiz around the David Batchelor exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery (until 14 July). It's titled "Flatlands", a name to gladden this cyclist's heart.

Packing it in

I'm about to leave for a few days of cycling, and although there's not too much space in the panniers, what do I need to take apart from a few bits of clothes and some things to draw with?

I make a small pile of equipment to take - except I have this sneaking feeling that I'll end up using what I usually do: a thick black pen and a sketchbook. I like how pared down and simple these two are: black on white has an enduring appeal for me. The pile I intend to take is hardly extravagant — look at it. Taking a waterbrush and watercolour set is hardly going overboard, but how much will I actually use?

@jameshobbsart

The Walkie-Talkie: new on London's skyline

London's drive for a distinctive skyline continues unabated. Following on from the Shard and the Gherkin, taking shape now are the Walkie-Talkie and the Cheesegrater. (The half-finished Helter Skelter is currently on hold, and the Scalpel is in the pipeline, as it were.)
The eyecatching feature of the Walkie-Talkie, at 20 Fenchurch Street, is that it curves outwards towards its top, so the highest floors are larger than those lower down, giving it the appearance of a giant telephone receiver popping up through the city's buildings. Designed by Rafael Viñoly, it is due to open in April 2014, and while most of us usually have to make do with the external appearances of towers in the financial district, this time there will be a "skygarden" open to the public. The plan is that it will be free, but require advanced booking. We'll see how that goes. Would it have received approval without the garden?
Finding it to draw presented the usual problem with tall buildings in a city: the closer you get, the harder it is to see. At Leadenhall Market, from where I drew this, the view opens up and the curve of the building's sides becomes apparent, as if any interest in accurate perspective has gone out of the window. Turning around, and the rising Cheesegrater was visible, looming over Leadenhall Market. (More here on this one soon.)
At 38 floors, the Walkie-Talkie is hardly the world's tallest (the Burj Khalifa has 164), or even London's (it barely makes it into its top 10), but it looks as if it will have an overpowering presence on the scrum of tall buildings north of London Bridge. The crowd is getting thicker. Old friends—and enemies—are getting lost in the midst of it.

St Paul's Cathedral

I stopped by St Paul's Cathedral on the way back from work yesterday to draw while preparations continued for the funeral of Margaret Thatcher later today. I drew this still astride the bike, helmet and cycling clips still on: this, I find, encourages a focus on the essentials.

From a train along the River Exe

The train west from London through Devon follows the west bank of the River Exe, and then along the coast for several miles, and then along the north bank of the River Teign. It's a kind of constant and yet continually changing view out of the windows on the left hand side of the train. To draw this is to try to portray an amalgam of a specific place. The boat in the middle of this (above) started as a buoy, and then morphed from dinghy to whatever it looks like now. Is it a yacht?
The drawing below, of the view towards Exmouth as the train neared Dawlish Warren, was more about the sky. I was interested in how Rolf Schröter drew clouds from a German train, as the sky is often the least changing element of the scene out of a train window. I like Rolf's work a lot.

Room with a view

It's a view I've seen a lot of lately; I turn my head left now, and that's what I see. I like this view.

Against the tide

A quiet journey home to London on the train from the south coast one evening last week, watching the congested platforms filled with commuters on their way home in the opposite direction, as darkness falls outside.

Sketchcrawl: underground at Tate Modern

It wasn't ideal weather for a sketchcrawl yesterday, but it was handy having Tate Modern at hand to warm up in, while the temperatures outside struggled to reach freezing point. The vast new underground, windowless Tanks were showing William Kentridge's I Am Not Me (which closes today). It was dark, I couldn't see what I was drawing, and fellow viewers got confused with the silhouettes of Kentridge's eight-channel video work. A great space though. I like it in there.

Tate Modern's Turbine Hall

London sketchcrawl at Bankside on 19 January

The next London Urban Sketchers sketchcrawl coincides with the 38th Worldwide Sketchcrawl on Saturday 19 January 2013, meeting at midday at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, and going on until 5pm. Meanwhile, all around the world, people are doing the same in their own cities, sketchbook in hand. What could be better than that?

You just come with your drawing kit, pay no money, draw, and chat with other people who are doing exactly the same. It's a relaxing thing. Inside or out, there's plenty to draw around Bankside.

Need more info? See the London Urban Sketchers website, or the London Sketchcrawl Facebook page.

A look down St Martin's Lane, London

I've been going through some older sketchbooks recently for something I'm working on, and came across quite a few drawings (unhelpfully not dated by me, but perhaps around 2000) that suddenly made me quite nostalgic about the good old 2B pencil.
I've gone on and on about my love for the humble, high fibre option pencil before, so I won't do it again, but... I just wish pencil drawings felt a bit more permanent when they are finished. Fixative or no fixative, they seem temporary in a way pen drawings don't.

Sketchcrawling with Urban Sketchers London

The third Urban Sketchers London sketchcrawl took place last week, a cheerful bunch of us meeting up by the diplodocus in the central hall of the Natural History Museum. It was a bit of a change for me, drawing things that are in glass display cases that I don't usually draw, which is a good thing surely, and probably part of what sketchcrawling is about. In the grip of a tight deadline, it was good to get out and draw and meet new people.
Then it was across the road to the Victoria and Albert Museum, all of a 15-second walk away, for lunch and, later, to compare drawings.
See more about it at the Urban Sketchers London website.

Laon cathedral, France

Last summer we drove down through France to Lake Annecy to camp by the water. We're not enthusiastic drivers, but each place where we stayed on our leisurely journey there and back was distinctive and memorable, even if the names of the places we stayed were not: Troyes and Lons-le-Saunier going south, Tournus and Laon on the way back, my sketchbook helpfully reminds me.

Laon cathedral is visible for miles, rising from the city on a ridge in the Picardy plain after our journey through the Champagne region. Driving up to our hotel in Laon's old centre is like going the wrong way up a helter skelter, the route becoming tighter and narrower as it nears the top. There's a cafe next to the cathedral in the square, of course, and the next morning we sit there drinking coffee and drawing while we prepare to head back to the Channel Tunnel.

This image for sale as a limited edition print: contact jameshobbs45@gmail.com

Urban Sketchers London sketchcrawl: Saturday 1 December at 11am

Poster drawing by Katherine Tyrrell

The next Urban Sketchers London sketchcrawl is coming soon. We will be meeting on Saturday 1 December at 11am in the free-to-enter Natural History Museum, near to one of the exhibits for which it is best known: the diplodocus skeleton in its central hall by the main entrance.

As well as the diverse and extraordinary exhibits in this museum, and the other ones nearby, there is plenty to draw outside if the weather is up to it, such as the skating rink that arrives close to the museum each winter. There's more information at the Urban Sketchers London website. Follow the tweets @urbsketchlondon.

It's a relaxed and pressure-free event. Come for as long as you can and meet other artists who get up to the same kinds of this as you do. Just bring whatever you usually draw with. You know it makes sense.

The Natural History Museum is at Cromwell Road, London SW7 5DB. www.nhm.ac.uk

At the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, 25-28 October 2012

James Hobbs, Shoreditch High Street, digital print

I'm showing some new work on the Skylark Galleries stand (C3) at the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea Park, London, this week from Thursday 25 October to Sunday 28 October 2012. It's a great place to see new work, buy it and have it on the wall of your homely abode by the evening. And all without breaking the bank.

I'll be on the stand on Thursday until 3pm, on Saturday from 2pm to 6.30pm, and on Sunday until 3pm. Drop by if you can, whoever you are, and say hello. I'll show you my sketchbooks, if you're interested. (On Friday I'll even be in Skylark 2 gallery in the Oxo Tower Wharf from 11am to 6pm if you can't make the fair.)

For more information about the Affordable Art Fair follow this. Into the tweeting thing? Follow me at @jameshobbsart.

Regent Street meets Tenerife

I've always been interested in how a piece of work leaves home to make a life for itself once you have sold it. It's not often I get to see where they end up. And then last week, two lovely buyers Natalie Ward and Vanessa Skinner sent me this photograph of one of my prints they'd purchased from Skylark Galleries in its new home in Tenerife.

How can Regent Street's (rather simplified) architectural charms and a double-decker bus look so at home off the coast of Africa looking out at the North Atlantic? But what wouldn't? My thanks to them for sending this.

On the Greenwich sketchcrawl

I joined the London Urban Sketchers sketchcrawl around Greenwich last weekend, along with about 50 other artists. Greenwich is still recovering from the Olympic Games; the equestrian stadium is still standing, so parts of the park are closed, and local traders are reported in the local press as saying their takings were down by as much as 50% over the Olympic period, although things seemed busy last weekend.

It was a great day for a sketchcrawl, and there are more planned for the coming months. Dates will be announced on the London Urban Sketchers website.



Top: Royal Observatory, and above, Astronomy Centre, Greenwich, London

Still at an IKEA store near you...

My A5-sized Kort art card range of London scenes is still available at IKEA stores. You can find out if they're in the store near you by looking here.

Update: they are no longer at an IKEA near you, although we still find the odd one in a frame around the store in Edmonton, north London.

Showing now on the South Bank...

I have a few more drawings and prints than usual on show at Skylark 2 as part of its featured artist rota, to coincide with the Thames Festival this weekend (8-9 September). Framed and unframed, big or small, there's possibly a work for you. The gallery is on the first floor with a great view of the river.

The show is on for a few weeks - it closes on 16 September. Follow me @jameshobbsart.

Ackland Museum of Art fundraiser show

I am one of the 38 international artists who have a drawing on show — and on sale — at the Ackland Museum of Art store, Chapel Hill, South Carolina, as part of an Urban Sketchers education programme fundraiser. More information here.

Seeing the World, One Drawing at a Time continues from Thursday 16 August until Saturday 6 October.

London's Olympic Stadium

The Olympic stadium in Stratford is a few miles away from where we live in north London, close enough, like most of London probably, for us to see its lights beaming into the night air on the evening of the opening ceremony's rehearsal. Tonight is the real thing.

Are Londoners cynical and moaning about the Olympics? Many are, but many of these moaning cynics were among the millions that went to see the Olympic torch as it passed around the country. I know: I was among them...

The finished Shard: Europe's tallest (for now)

James Hobbs, The Shard from Southwark Street

Having posted drawings of London's newest tallest building as a promising stump in 2010 and as an unfinished, unfurling skyscraper in 2011, I thought I'd mark its recent opening with another of the finished thing.

The 310-metre building launched with a light display at the beginning of July 2012. We live a few miles to the north and went up on to the roof of the house to watch the lasers beaming around the city. Perhaps our expectations were, like the Shard, too high: it wasn't so exciting.

Is the building any better? The angles of its sides means it invariably reflects the colour of the sky, which I like, even though this particular summer that colour has, until now, been that of rainclouds.

The Shard is distinctive, certainly, but dwarfing and isolated. And how do the £50 million penthouses, luxury hotel and £24.95 adult ticket prices to the as-yet-unopened viewing tower relate to what's happening in the streets it has risen from? How many people from Southwark are working in its offices? I have the feeling it is probably better to be on the inside looking out, than on the outside looking in.

Urban Sketchers London show opens at Foyles bookshop

James Hobbs, Foyles bookshop

The exhibition The Art of Urban Sketching, which is linked to the book of the same name by USk founder Gabriel Campanario, has now opened at Foyles bookshop, London. It features five monochrome drawings by me straight from the sketchbook, including one that was reproduced in the book. (So not the one on the right here, which I drew on Charing Cross Road last week.)

There are five other London-based artists showing in the exhibition: Nathan Brenville, Barry Jackson, Olha Pryymak, Katherine Tyrrell and Zhenia Vasiliev. You can follow the evolving introductions to each artist at the Urban Sketchers London blog, which is being updated each day of the show.

Foyles, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB
Monday 16 July to Sunday 22 July 2012
More about the show here.

Coming soon at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, and much more

Seventh Avenue cafe

I'm going to be exhibiting work, along with other London-based Urban Sketchers, from the hugely successful The Art of Urban Sketching by Gabriel Campanario at Foyles Gallery, on the third floor of the bookshop's Charing Cross Road store, from 16 to 22 July. The book features work by urban artists around the world who contribute to the Urban Sketchers blog. The show is part of the Foyles's Sketching the City season, which continues until 4 August. I've written an article about Urban Sketchers for the summer issue of Artists & Illustrators magazine, out now.

More? My work continues at the Fat Cat cafe, along with that of fellow N16 Pop-up artist Deborah Sandersley, at 119 Stoke Newington Church Street until Tuesday 17 July.

And, of course, my work, is also on sale at IKEA stores worldwide and always on display at Skylark 2, in the Oxo Tower Wharf, on London's South Bank...

Show at Stoke Newington Church Street extended to 17 July

I'm the latest N16 Pop-up artist, along with Deborah Sandersley, to show at the Fat Cat cafe on Stoke Newington Church Street. There's new signage going up on the cafe as I write, which makes it a bit anonymous at present: the cafe is at the junction with Marton Road.

My work is on show there until 10 July 17 July, and it's all for sale. Seen my work and like it? Give me a call on 07891 611919 or email me at info at james-hobbs.co.uk.

There's more about the N16 Pop-up artists here.

The Fat Cat cafe is at 119 Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 0UD. It's worth a visit. Most of Stoke Newington is worth a visit, frankly. A 73 bus will bring you here.

A day in New York City

Broadway at 35th Street, New York City

I had a week of (journalistic) work at the first Frieze New York art fair recently. At the end of my visit, in order to get a cheaper ticket home, I stayed an extra day in the city before an early flight the next morning. A day in New York could turn out expensive for people good at the retailing thing, what with the shopping opportunities people lead me to believe the city has, making the whole exercise pointless.

But it is free to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, and along the High Line, the raised park along a disused industrial railway line, and around the 9/11 Memorial. Later, I walked 30 blocks from the Guggenheim Museum to meet New York Urban Sketcher Melanie Reim for tea.

The High Line, New York City

I had an idea of going to the cinema in the evening, but I was a bit aimless, and there was plenty going on in the streets, so I drew and drew around Times Square as the sun went down. It's the way New York rears straight up at you, so the sky becomes a very different element of the composition, compared with, for instance, the way it often is in London. There's one hell of a lot of drawing to be done in New York City.

Times Square, New York City

London sketchcrawl: Saturday 26 May

Defoe Road, Stoke Newington

Urban Sketcher Pete Scully is coming to London this weekend, and he has arranged a sketchcrawl around Fleet Street on Saturday 26 May from 10.30am to 4.30pm.

The starting point is at Temple tube station, but there is more information on the Urban Sketchers London website.

All you need is something to draw on, something to draw with, and a few hours. No charge.

The Art of Urban Sketching: London launch on Saturday

The Art of Urban Sketching by Urban Sketchers founder Gabriel Campanario is having its London launch this Saturday 19 May at Cass Art, Islington, from 12.30pm to 5.30pm. Six of the artists with work in the book will be there during the afternoon (including me - I'll be there from 3pm onwards). We'll be taking some sketchbooks, and things to draw with and the book will be on sale.

Everyone welcome! It's free! Who could ask for more? It's close to Angel tube and a host of bus services.

How to find Cass Art, with a printable map. See you there.

Coming soon at Grand Designs Live

I'm showing work at Grand Designs Live at Excel, London, with Skylark Galleries from 5 to 13 May. I'll have framed work on show from Wednesday 9 May until the show closes. Find out more about the fair, and book tickets at a discounted rate, here. I'll be on the Skylark stand (L141 in the Grand Interiors Hall) on Tuesday 8, Wednesday 9 and Sunday 12 May, if you're around. Come and introduce yourself...

Marine Parade, Shaldon, Devon

Early summer, Clissold Park

With the short-lived arrival of summer last week, Clissold Park was soon well filled. I had time while the daughters were off with their friends to sit with the bike and a cup of tea. There were no real shady spots to keep out of the sun: the summer temperatures had arrived before the leaves had come out to offer shade.

Just down Stoke Newington Church Street at the Fat Cat cafe, the first round of the N16 Pop-up work, by Annie Morris and Stewy, is now on display. My turn comes up around 12 June until 10 July. More information here soon. And in an evolving N16 Pop-up website here.

From a Turkish cafe, north London

Stoke Newington has Church Street, with numerous cafes, organic stores, independent shops and all the trendy stuff, and the traffic-laden High Street, part of the old Roman Ermine Street running due north from London Bridge, which morphs culturally through Shoreditch, Dalston, Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill, but with an essentially edgier feel. Church Street and High Street: one would be pretty much unbearable without the other.
The High Street has a good line of Turkish restaurants and cafes, too, one of which I drew this from. Dear old Gilbert and George can occasionally be spotted eating in one of the restaurants down the road. That's definitely one for the I-Spy book of Contemporary Artists.

New: Urban Sketchers London blog

The London Urban Sketchers blog has gone live: Katherine Tyrrell is first up, followed by me, with more London-based artists blogging over the coming days and weeks.
Visit www.urbansketchers-london.blogspot.com.
The blog is the latest regional offshoot of the international Urban Sketchers - you can find the main website here.

James Hobbs images on sale at IKEA

News! I'm very happy to say that five of my images have just gone on sale at IKEA. Wherever you are in the world, there's a chance they're in stock at your nearest branch. But check here before you make a special journey: www.ikea.com.

My original digital prints are still on sale at Skylark 2, The Art Agency and Printroom, London.

If you've never visited my blog before, hello. You can, if you like, follow me on Twitter or even Facebook.

And you can find out more about my work on my main website: www.james-hobbs.co.uk.

Grayson Perry, fashion victor

I wasn't so sure about Grayson Perry when I went to see his show at the British Museum last week, but it was impossible not to warm to him. He communicates very directly. "Don't look too hard for meaning here," he greets us. I wrote it down, and then found more comments by him that resonated for me that I also noted, until I realised I couldn't possibly copy everything he said that I liked and be out of the museum by closing time. I was still resisting the urge to copy quotations by him from books in the gift shop on my way out.

Part of the reason for this is being from the same pre-Goldsmiths art school generation as him. Perry gave the title "Unpopular Culture" to an exhibition of postwar British works he selected from the Arts Council collection in 2008, which rings true. The first show I really went to at the Tate Gallery was "The Hard-Won Image" in 1984, which I remember as consisting of works by Kitaj and Auerbach and others that suggested slow grind in a variety of shades of brown. Art was much less fashionable then.

In fact, Perry's British Museum show ("The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman", extended to 26 February 2012) suggests his works come from much further back. They are interspersed with works from the museum's collection, as a tribute to the craftsmen and women who have made them, and often it is difficult to know which are his and which are 400 years old and from Ethiopia, or wherever. By the end I'd lost all faith in my judgement in knowing which were which. If that isn't a sign of his work being unfashionable I don't know what is. But to make works that chime so well with those from the British Museum? How much better could it get than that?

The Art of Urban Sketching: a quick flick through

Have a quick look at "The Art of Urban Sketching", out any minute now. My work flies through at about 47 seconds, and again later on...

The Art of Urban Sketching

I've been blogging occasionally on the Urban Sketchers website for a few years now, and I'm one of 85 artists profiled in a new book about the international non-profit organisation. The Art of Urban Sketching, by its founder Gabriel Campanario, is published in February by Quarry at £17.99.

Urban Sketchers is a great thing. Invited artists around the world post their drawings and paintings with a few words about how they came about. Whether the drawing is on the back of an envelope or in one of those swish Moleskine sketchbooks that some artists seem to like, it can have an international audience - and international critical response - within minutes. This can be kind of odd, and strangely exciting, when you consider what usually happens to many such drawings. Urban Sketchers is fantastically international, holds an annual symposium, which I haven't been able to attend yet, has nearly 16,000 Facebook fans and 7,000 people subscribing to its blog feed. It's worth visiting, if you haven't already.

As its motto says: "See the world one drawing at a time."

N16 Pop-up: open now

It was a betting shop, and now it's a pop-up gallery, handily placed just around the corner from where we live in Stoke Newington. It's currently showing the work of 11 local artists, including mine, and open right up until Christmas, and late on Thursdays.

In the spirit of keeping it local, I have some unframed prints of our much-loved local pub The Shakespeare in Allen Road on sale inside.

Pay it a visit if you're around. It's next to Mother Earth health food shop at Albion Parade.

And follow their tweets at @n16popup.

Built in Miami

I'm back from another week working at Art Basel Miami Beach. It's the tenth fair and the years have gradually bestowed a cultural and architectural legacy on the city. At one end of the pedestrianised shopping street Lincoln Road is Herzog & de Meuron's carpark at number 1111 (right). I drew it last year, and didn't think it was finished. I drew it again last week, and still wasn't sure if it was. (It is.) Apart from the shops and the distinctive, irregular carpark, there is, apparently, a residential element, a floor for installations and a restaurant. But is there a way in?

Just off the other end of Lincoln Road, towards the beach, is Frank Gehry's New World Center for the New World Symphony Orchestra (below). Again, I haven't been in (Art Basel Miami Beach's video programme was screened on the hall's exterior during the warm evenings during fair) but it's unmistakeably finished.



Over its entrance and on its roof there are rolling forms that recall Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, but otherwise its exterior has clinical straight lines. The paved footpaths across the palm tree-lined park before it are straight too - in time, the public will carve more direct and natural lines across its lawns.

On sale this Christmas...

How about a limited edition print for a Christmas present? I have works on sale, framed and unframed, at Skylark Gallery 2 at the Oxo Tower Wharf, right next to the gorgeous River Thames (above), at the Art Agency, Esher, and at Printroom, Hampstead. More details of another venue for my work will be posted here as soon as it is confirmed.

Or you can contact me directly for more information. See more examples of my work here:
www.james-hobbs.co.uk

Still showing at the Art Agency, Esher

I still have work showing in the inaugural exhibition at the Art Agency's new gallery in Esher, Surrey, which continues until 10 November.

The Art Agency
93 High Street
Esher
Surrey
KT10 9QA

Right, Regent Street, digital print, £120 unframed