SketchCrawling with Lynne Chapman

I'm really looking forward to our symposium SketchCrawl - last year was such a warm and uplifting experience! I love SketchCrawling, so at home we go out at least once a month: 

I was recently invited to try a new twist to the formula and lead a children's SketchCrawl, as part of a local festival in Sheffield. We planned to spend the whole of last Sunday afternoon sketching in the Botanical gardens. I was a little nervous - it might be June, but it has been raining stair-rods for weeks (it's doing it right now). Sunday morning arrived to ominous storm clouds which hung around, but didn't quite burst. Then, miraculously, 10 minutes before kick-off the clouds parted and radiant sun shone down on us! I was actually too hot in my heavy jeans.

I introduced the afternoon by showing round lots of my sketchbooks, to help give the children ideas, and talked about all the different art materials they could try. Thanks to Derwent's generosity, I was even able to lend out tins of coloured pencils, pastels and watercolour pencils for people to experiment with. Then my friend and fellow sketcher Jane Horton talked about iPad / iPhone sketching and the children sat open-mouthed for her 'play-back' demonstration! This is one of Jane's iPad sketches of Sheffield:

We dispersed into the park and I spent the rest of the afternoon hunting children down amongst the trees, so we could chat about their sketches, I could offer any help they needed and sometimes draw alongside them. The children did some amazing work: they are such naturals at simplification and abstraction and do instinctively what adults take years of practise to achieve.

At 4.30 we downed tools to gather for the usual sketchbook sharing, then I gave Urban Sketchers a massive plug. A great success and a fun afternoon!