Posts in Category: Friends

Sketchbook 66

August to October 2021

A sketch of Broughton Street in Edinburgh, drawn with HTA Sketchclub. We started sketchclub about ten years ago as a response to people in the office wanting to improve their drawing skills. I realised how much I enjoyed drawing and that I hadn’t done much observational drawing since school. I’d done plenty of drawing with work, but it was generally drawing to explain an idea or to show what a place that didn’t exist might be like. Observational drawing is different. You need to understand what you are looking at for one thing. What is the spacing of those windows? How many are there? How does that chimney meet the roof apex? That sort of thing. And the action of looking and thinking makes you wonder what a space like this is for and how it might be better used. Covid restrictions have reclaimed some of the space for people but how could this be developed to make a better space here?
Sketchclub in London
Two sketches from HTA Sketchclub in London. This is our new street on the edge of a park for Pocket Living. If you draw what other people made you don’t have the complete picture of the process that led to it. Here we can look at what we made and discuss it with the team who spent years making it happen.
Looking at the world with work. This time a tour led by Lisa Williams exploring the black history behind some of Edinburgh’s familiar landmarks.
Basil Spence’s Sunderland Civic Centre. It’s an interesting building, with a rigorous geometric logic driven through the design from the organisational diagram to the floor tiles beneath your feet. Sunderland City Centre is moving North, taking up the space left by the industries that once lined the River Wear. The council are a key part of this change, and they have left here and moved to a new Civic Centre near the river.
How the basic clay tile makes a pattern that reflects the building plan. The slight difference in tone of each tile is beautiful in combination.
Top left is the building plan. I tried to draw the tiered steps/ ramp accurately, to try to understand it better. Next to the central column a man is making a plein air oil painting of the building.
I’m here for a consultation event on what might happen once the building is demolished. There’s some debate about that but not really any about the demolition principle which has been agreed locally for years, so people want to know what’s happening next.
The Edinburgh office went to see Laura Mvula at the Festival (there’ a limited Festival).
Home stuff: Scout Camp at Fordell Firs.
Scout camp fire.
Innes’s football tournament at Wardie.
Holiday in London. In Kev & Pam’s cool back garden.
We swapped houses with Rory.
It was a good arrangement for a Covid summer: make your own plans and keep it simple.
One of Rory’s lovely old cameras. I do drawings like this to try to capture the precision but my lines aren’t crisp enough to do the objects justice.
In London we walked a lot.
Off to Stamford Bridge, for a tour.
Waiting for a football match to finish in Queensferry.
A very little little bit of Stirling Castle. We are working with the MOD just now so I’m paying close attention.
Ruari back from Germany. It’s lovely to see him after Lockdown separation.
Tube passengers.
Isla waiting for a consultation.

Sketchbook 58 September ’19

Craig Jones Rowley
Craig Jones Rowley making lunch at HTA Design in Edinburgh. The sketch ended up in a cook book we’ve made that celebrates our culture, our work, and the food we’ve being feeding everyone for 50 years.
This is the London office lunch queue.
Some drawings of the family. This is Michael, or ‘Grumpy’ as the kids know him.
Julie
Isla sitting in a box
In the livingroom
Watching the kids skiing at Hillend.
I cooked 50 burgers for the kids, undercooked a couple for the adults.
I went to Knockhill to watch Michael Crees.
Local man Rory Butcher won.
Nic Hamilton’s Ford Focus being prepared for the final race.
Speaking in Glasgow City Chambers to an interesting audience of German and Scottish construction professionals. I was talking about off site manufacture, and how it’s changing everything.
I learned some basic first aid with the Scouts. One of those things where you wonder why you didn’t learn it years ago.
With HTA Sketchclub in Leith. We sketched a few things: I liked this SuHuHa project and it’s proximity to different neighbours.
Ben handing over his RIBA Presidency to Alan Jones after an excellent two years.
Listening to Phil Jupitus interview David Mach.
Getting the bike out around Perthshire with Balfour Beatty and our hosts Synergy Cycles.
The HTA team round the coffee point. A good spot to catch up on wha’s happening.

Sketchbook 57 – July 2019

In Leiria with Eva and her family.

Making paper by hand in a mill refurbished by Alvaro Siza.

Grandad’s house….

Jose, from the Leiria urban sketchers.



In Lisbon, and on the beach in Estoril. The water is three degrees cooler than off the Hebrides.

Our flat, and a lady on a train. she came and sat next to me so I hid the drawing.

Isla on the train.

Fraser on the train.

Lunching

Dunfallandy House in Pitlochry, with the family.

Andreas on the piano stool.

Steven building a rocket, Gran doing the crossword.

Pitlochry dam. It’s the fifth time we use get power from the same water and the least effective, but it’s impressive to look at.

In London, in Caroline’s garden.

In Edinburgh, in Matt & Mina’s garden.

On the train

Ronni & Lewis at the Edinburgh Festival

Sketching St Philip’s Church, recovering from the office summer social

Sketch Book 55 – April 2019

The theme is maybe years, or numbers. Seven kids in the rain in a hot tub at Tom Bent’s birthday bash.

At the Macallan distillery. Twelve year old for me.

We cycled round Loch an Eilean with the three kids and stopped to hear the echo from the island castle.

Innes losing his first tooth.

Sketch One from the excellent Highland Folk Museum in Kingussie.

Sketch Two

Isla racing up the Landmark climbing rock.

Peabody talking about numbers, huge financial ones, and how you reconcile them with a social purpose.

Three Crabs in Henry’s Cellar Bar.

Helping at the 30th Craigalmond Scout Coffee Morning.

On the DLR. I think  it’s far harder to sketch on the DLR than it was six months ago. We have thousands of new passengers from Londons new housing developments, and there’s no longer any space.

Two memorials commemorating the 36,000 who died in the First and Second World Wars with no grave but the sea.

Four blocks nicely composed into a West Edinburgh housing development.

Julie sorting our summer holiday.

Three judges and one of our team at the AJ100 Awards judging.

In York Station waiting for the last train home.

At Silverknowes with about eighty Scouts, Cubs and Beavers.

DLR sketch two.

Soderberg in Soho. The first outside Edinburgh I think. Very nice too.

That’s a sketchbook, minus a bunch of drawings of what we might do the house, and I’m not putting them up here.

 

Sketch Book 54 Side One – January & February 2019

Drawing people:

an Aberdeen fan on the DLR.

Work colleagues James Lord,

John Nsiah,& Rory Bergin.

Innes,

Fraser (& the bit of my family tree that plans to cycle up the Hebrides in 2019).Douglas

My Mum.

Innes, Isla & FraserNeil

Murray

Footbaallers

Commuters

On a train

Listening

Gairlochy

Life model PaulAnd in paint. I mean, these parallel lines are all very well but it’s nice to get the brushes out.

Music, Design & Travel – Sketchbook 54

The sketches are (pretty much) all on Instagram now at @sandysdrawingroom so I’m not posting them here so much. I like the immediacy of Instagram: draw them, photograph them post them. Quick. Here are some of the drawings from my 54th concertina sketchbook. Music at a fundraising dinner in the Grange Cricket Club.

Nice dinner, better music.

Members of the Royal High Pipe Band.

Discussing design at a Planning Appeal Hearing.

Discussing design with partners and staff at HTA. We review our projects in every Monday afternoon. Over the course of a few weeks we try to get round them all.The other guy is on a train. I love drawing people on trains now.

The passengers are captivated by their phones and don’t seem to notice. I miss out everything except the person to try and draw them more accurately.

Ali Germain on his way to the HTA Christmas party in London.

Isla

Innes and Fraser

Innes (?)

Some training with the Scouts.

And a great night watching Deacon Blue’s 30th Anniversary Tour, 31 years after I last saw them. Loved it.

 

September to November 2018

Drawings of people I know and people I don’t.

The London Underground is a pretty unpleasant place: too busy and too hot from from April to October. I avoid it when I can but you can’t use a Boris bike for every trip so to pass the time I’ve plucked up the courage to draw people i don’t know who’re sitting four feet away.

They get off, of course, so I’m quite often left with incomplete faces, but I quite like that anyway.

No negative reaction from any of the subjects so far.

Drawing people I know is more straightforward.

Innes waiting for Fraser to finish swimming.

Fraser & Innes watching football on Tv & Ipad.

My niece Anna.

Julie in Heathrow. Easier to draw people at events.

Watching the Proclaimers in London.

My mum, and others, celebrating 40 years since she became minister in Townhill Parish Church.

The traditional church hall cup of tea afterwards.

Peter Murray & Richard Rogers introducing the NLA’s exhibition on offsite manufacture in construction, which features a number of our projects.

The Cubs doing a craft project at their camp.

Kenneth Williamson guiding us through an illuminating talk on Edinburgh’s suburban railways. I live right on top of one, so i’m very interested.

At the RIBA Stirling Prize in the Roundhouse in Camden.

Fraser, Isla and Innes at the Armistice Memorial.

The kids watching the fireworks next door.

Listening to a moving talk from Hannah Graf, the UK’s highest ranking transgender army officer.

At Coram, for the launch of Cycle to Mipim 2019.

And finally, a small number of drawings focused on buildings, rather than people. This is Market Street with HTA Sketch Club.

Ludgate Hill in London.

At Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, a really beautiful place.

 

 

Nairn – February 2018

nairn house

Back in February: at the beautiful (and somewhat hidden) Ardclach Bell Tower.  We stayed in Nairn. I loved running on the beach in the dark and the snow, then retreating back to this cosy flat to warm up.

culloden 180213Culloden Battlefield. The line of the Red Coats and the line of the Jacobites, in the snow. The bothy on the left was a field hospital, the battle was over in an hour. There’s not much in the sketch, but standing here and looking gave me the time to consider what had happened.

fort george - 180216

The aftermath: the impressive Fort George. The Victorian splendour of Nairn.

london - 180206Back amongst the sculptural shapes of the city.lonlinessChatting to the architects of EH4 and listening to a theory about how the spaces we make and the patterns of ownership contributes to the loneliness that afflicts society.

Craigs 50th - 31 March 2018At the Devil’s Cut to celebrate Craig Jone’s Rowley’s 50th. Craig is trying out fifty a wee bit before me. I’ll check how he gets on, if he doesn’t like it maybe I’ll not bother.
tube
Some folk on the tube. I used to be shy about drawing people on the tube but now I realise we are so close together that everyone is pretending there is nobody else here.

Jennie & Steven Got Married – 24 March 2018

Jennie & Steven 3 - 24 March 2018A great ceilidh to end a lovely day celebrating Jennie & Steven’s wedding. Jennie & Steven 2 - 24 March 2018

Sketching the three beautiful bridges while listening to three good speeches. Family weddings are so much easier than when I last turned up at them twenty five years ago. This is mostly because I’ve decided how many cheeks to kiss and nobody asks me if it will be my turn next.

Jennie & Steven 1 - 24 March 2018At the lovely ceremony in Dalmeny Church. The four guys in front of me are Andreas, Ruari, Marc and Douglas: three boys and their dad. As the register was signed they played a brass medley that ranged from Wild Mountain Thyme to Star Wars. It was amusing for everyone and moving for some of us, a memory of my dad. A very special event.

World of Wings 18 March 2018

That was undoubtedly the main event of the last wee while, but here are a few other sketches of recent events. Above is Fraser at World of Wings. We learnt about how the vulture is really a good thing, despite the reputation. He cleans up after animals have already died and gets disease out of the eco system. I liked the red tailed buzzard as he was happy to pose for a sketch.

Dispossession

Watching a film about the housing crisis: dispossession. We need more subsidised housing, across the country.

Bothwell House 25 March 2018My old flat.

180320-Aitch - FinchleyTrying to get planning to put new homes on brownfield land, but people make it difficult so don’t expect all our housing to come through this route.

180320-Aitch OfficesIt’s not easy. You might need a barrister. He turned up with his suitcase of papers. Another reminder of my late father.Duff HouseDuff House.

emergency exit 21 February 2018Some travel.

 

Neil Gillespie 27 February 2018

At a talk about the excellent work of architects Reiach & Hall.

Culpeper 19 March 2018Staying at the Culpeper. A London pub with five bedrooms.

Culpeper 21 February 2018A small businesses being creative and making the most of every inch of space in our cities. The opposite of bland hotels with long corridors and a smell concocted by an expert in user experience. Loved it.

You Stand Watching – December 2017

The last drawing of the year, at Hugh & Murray’s house

new year 17-18The party is over there. I’m watching from the far side of the table.

christmas 2017The Kerrs watching Elizabeth II (trad).

LyceumWatching the panto-esque Arabian Nights at the Lyceum.

january 2108Fraser watching the TV football chat before going to watch the Pars beat Falkirk 2-0.

innes and legoWatching Innes work through two days of Lego building.

the dinerIn London, by the office, I choose to sit in the not so nice cafe in order to watch the diners in the nice one on the far side of the street.

ruari standingRuari, watching the events of a family Christmas.