Sketching by the canal

Lunchbreak sketching with my sketching buddy Anette today. We picked up some Chinese takeaway and each found a low plinth by the canal. Cramming lunch shopping, eating, chatting, AND a watercolour sketch into under 60 minutes makes for some hurried sketching.




Within 15 minutes the steps were crawling with students on lunch break. It was both noisy and crowded, and I had my work cut out for me juggling sketchbook, paintbox-palette, and a wad of tissue to wipe the waterbrush on, while trying to catch part of the noisy jostling scene in no time and without dropping any of my equipment.



The paper got a few stains and swipes, and I gave up doing much in the colour-mixing department, but all in all the exercise was reasonably successful considering my minimal workspace of a pair of narrow knees!


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Here are the two pages of the spread scanned in seperately:





I think it's interesting to see the differences in mood and colour between the two halves of the image.

Here is a snapshot of Anette's sketch of two café guests: