Sunday 19th April
5.00pm
I do a live talk with Urban Sketchers on Instagram Live. Rob Sketcherman is a charming and loquacious host. We talk about what it’s like trying to keep inspired to sketch when you’re stuck at home…I tell Rob about finding the beauty in the everyday. I tell him that it’s been a really precious time for me and my family. I never want to give the impression that life is perfect, because while we are navigating this Lockdown well and are all getting along, it hasn’t always been that way. It just happens that we are doing well at the moment. Like many others, our family has been through a considerable amount over the few years, and the Lockdown is a picnic by comparison. But enough of that! Here are Rob and I during the interview:

Rob conducts the interview with great technical fluency, holding up images on his iPad. The next sketch makes it look as if gin and tonic is the only thing that gets me through…I didn’t say that! On that note, my husband Marcel and I have decided that we are drinking too much and we are going to cut back to our pre-Lockdown levels of just two days a week. Okay maybe three. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays wouldn’t be the same without a glass of wine…or even a gin and tonic.

Rob has asked us to include an urban sketching challenge in the talk. I suggest painting your bakes, whether they are your home-made bakes or shop-bought bakes. Of coirse, if you prefer, you can paint savoury food too – the point is to paint them with no pen lines, because food tends to be less full of hard lines. Here is my instruction:



I hope that’s clear – feel free to ask me anything you haven’t quite understood.
Santi Sallés from Barcelona is the other guest on the show. His work is beautiful and I am a long time fan. His challenge is to draw yourself working, resting, cooking and drawing, but it is less of an urban sketching challenge than a fun, playful one, from our imagination. It looks like a lot of fun though, and I’ll definitely give it a go. Watch this space!