COVID 19, Sketchbook 62
The sketch above is on Leith Walk, a couple of days before lockdown one was announced. I’d just been on the phone to my partners discussing what might happen and looking at the sketch brings back all the feelings of uncertainty.
24th March. The remaining food rescued from the HTA fridge and the first day in fifty years that HTA hadn’t made lunch for everyone who was in the office.
In the house, it was like this:
January to early March 2020
These are my sketches from the period before the COVID 19 lockdown.
November/ December 2019
November is charity art auction time with Article 25. I sold one in the auction and bought one too.
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
In my tent, ready to get up and tackle day three of this camp.
Day three is the last day, and it begins round the flag pole.
I’ve been helping some Cubs and Scouts get their art badge.
It’s a team effort, well organised by Dylan with the support of many D’Mains volunteers.
At Glasgow School of Art, looking at what Hilmi and Mo have been up to.
The project work is great. I like looking closely at the buildings around us too. This is just round the corner from the Edinburgh office.
It’s a warehouse: a well designed bay is repeated and some parts are elaborated, some played down.
Beautiful and unconventional urban design in Edinburgh at Shaw Street.
With some of out HTA Design team winning the “Clients’ Choice” Award at the AJ100 Awards.
Eating with Rettie at the Scottish Homes Awards, and talking about the prospects for Build to Rent in Scotland.
Working on Build to Rent with the Edinburgh Park Design team.
The project is for Parabola. Here it is being reviewed by Architecture & Design Scotland.
Travelling, and dinner with the helpful Specifi team in Edinburgh.
An LSE talk on peoples’ attitudes to living at high density.
At home: Fraser & Innes playing on my phone between football and swimming lessons.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
At Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, a really beautiful place.
On the tube, I sat opposite this chap with his one legged glasses. He was reading Oliver Twist and making hurried notes. In his black tie and black suit I imagined he was off to a funeral, to give an address.
Eugene has told me a story or two. He’s on the streets and he’s had what I think you a call a chequered past.
It was a summer of performances and this was the highlight: CirColumbia at the Edinburgh Festival. Great fun to draw.
The festival closing fireworks from Ramboll’s fifth floor Princes Street office were spectacular.
A table topping performance from Hearts.
Watching food being prepared; a bit of a show.
It’s the end of the summer, so there’s quite a high turnover in the office. The students go back to uni and the next lot arrive.
Talton House in the Cotswolds with my mum, my three sisters and all our families. Busy, but 2018’s weather meant life was mostly lived outside in the garden.
Some time with the people I’ve known the longest.
Gardens were the theme of the week. Hidcote.
The kids drawing on the wall. That was allowed.
In Stratford-upon-Avon with the family. Isla says none of these people look anything like themselves.
In between times I did some travelling.
And we started a competition to design some accommodation for a school in Malawi. Without safe accommodation many of the kids, particularly the girls, don’t make it through school. Education is a route out of poverty so we’d like to help. Deadline mid October, winner goes to Malawi to help build it.
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