Trees by the Aston expressway
Last Saturday I joined, for the first time, the Birmingham Urban Sketchers Group. The location was Aston, following a road past a Seventh Day Adventist chapel and low-rise residences against which autumn leaves piled high in drifts, under the expressway to the park and Aston Hall museum. Arriving late, on the coldest day of the year so far, I found other sketchers dotted about, hunched against the wind holding down their drawings. The expressway rises to sweep over the residential streets. The Aston Tavern proved a surprising haven in this urban environment, with log fires and good beers and classical music playing on the background. Behind this is the parish church, with tumbling memorials leaning against one another in the graveyard. I walked round the outside of Aston Hall (a large Jacobean manor that had been besieged by Parliamentarians in the Civil War) and looked down stone steps through trees to the Aston Villa stadium dwarfing the surrounding dwellings. We finished in the Eritrea Café, a late Victorian building, surmounted by a statue with helmet and trident, formerly the Britannia pub and for while used as a cannabis factory before its latest incarnation. I drew using my current field kit: conte crayon as initial layer and resist for subsequent watercolour. The drawings of the other sketchers can be seen on the group’s Facebook page.
Aston Villa stadium behind trees
Waiting for the train home
The Aston Tavern
Trees against the wall surrounding Aston Hall
kestrelart 
Sounds like great fun – even in the cold! Lovely sketches….!
Thanks
It was a good day and i met some cool people.
Reblogged this on Letters & notes and commented:
Some really cool paintings from kestralart.
Neil great to hear you’ve met up with the local urban sketchers. You did stacks of work! Obviously you Brits are made of sterner stuff when it comes to winter sketching. After our 4 C degrees outing this year our group has decided that winter sketch outings will be indoors!😊
Some people sketched inside the pub! It still counts. I’ll have a day soon in the warm, sketching in Singapore, I hope.
That will be great there’s so much to sketch there – and its warm!
Any thoughts where to go. I know you sketched there last year. I’m being flown out to give a 20 minute talk and am there three days. I’ll be taking my drawing stuff. Actually you influenced me to find the local urban sketchers, by the way.
Gardens by the Bay and Arab Street with the Sultan mosque would be good. I’d also suggest that you get in touch with Urban Sketchers Singapore, which is a very active group, they might be having an outing while you are there or someone might be able to sketch with you. They are very friendly😊. If nothing else check their Facebook page and you can see where they have been sketching which might suggest some places to go.
Great idea
Thanks
Wonderful Neil, thank you for sharing!
I love these! Especially the one with Villa’s ground in the background and the one of the two figures waiting for the train… Clearly urban sketching suits your style, brill!
Super-productive! I like them all, but my favourite is the little sketch of the people waiting for the train. 🙂
Thanks Rebecca
There is something about being in the groove of drawing that makes it work well by the end of the day. The sketch you like most was done on my way home.
N
🙂
I like them all, but especially had to stop and enlarge the one of the people. Love that one!
thanks Leslie
It’s funny how a quick sketch sometimes is the one that grabs people.