New Idea: the Tour de Sketch

By Lynne Chapman

On Sunday, we tried out a new sketching idea in Derbyshire, just outside Sheffield. Instead of our usual monthly SketchCrawl, we tried it on bikes. A group called Pedal Ready, associated with the Peak Park, sponsored us by providing free bike hire, which was great, because it meant everyone could have a go. 24 people turned up at 9.30am at Hassop's ex-railway station.


The 1st sketching stop was just 10 minutes away at the old Thornbridge Station:

Apparently, in its day, it was a private station for the exclusive use of the residents of the adjacent Thornbridge Hall (!). Next we continued to a spot where the path opened to lovely, long views across rolling farmland:
We had a longer run next, to where there was a twisted, old birch tree in a picnic area: We rode back to the cafe at Hassop Station for lunch, as it was too chilly to picnic, then had another slightly longer run afterwards, out to where the trail ends, at Coombs Road viaduct. The sun was trying to come out and it was getting quite warmer, so we sat on the grass, beside a field full of springy, new lambs, and spent about 50 minutes on our final sketch of the day: Then it was back to Hassop for a well-earned cuppa, where we sat round a big table and slowly passed all our sketchbooks around the circle. It was a real feast: big books, tiny books, all kinds of styles, rich with ink and watercolour, charcoal and pencil (as usual, I will post other people's work up in my Picture Gallery as they send it in. We'll certainly be trying that idea again!

3 comments:

  1. What a whizz of a combination! Makes me want to cycle up to yours :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a great day! I wonder if I could get anyone out to our lovely Chiltern Hills to sketch?

    ReplyDelete

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