Piccadilly

Had a lovely day out yesterday with the London Urban Sketchers in the very swish part of London around the Royal Academy.  The damp and rainy weather meant the first sketch I made was in the shelter of one of the many cafes along Piccadilly.  I'd taken out some of the Derwent pencils I'd been sent to try to see how they worked on location.

I used the colours from the 'Watercolour 12' and put down areas of colour.

Then I used one of their waterbrushes (which I already had) and went over the pencil to give a wash effect.

Finally I added line with the Derwent Graphik Line Maker 0.8.

With so many galleries and lovely shops in the area, it was easy to spend some time browsing around - especially as the weather was cold as well as damp but I did manage one more sketch.

This was the view through a small alleyway into Regent Street from the south side of Piccadilly.  Unlike the previous drawing, I used the Watercolour pencils together with the Graphik pen in a more spontaneous way and kept to a limited palette of just three colours.

Thank you to Derwent for supplying the pencils.  

You can find out more information about the London Urban Sketchers at http://urbansketchers-london.blogspot.co.uk/