Tag Archives: Concert

Daily Sketch

Carols for Christmas at Edinburgh’s St Cuthberts Church

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carolsforchristmasLast night St Cuthbert’s Church hosted the annual Carols For Christmas concert in aid of The Sick Kids Friends Foundation.

It was a wonderful night of choir singing, inspirational readings, and the stirring sounds of the Dalkeith & Mortonhall Brass Band who played a number of festive tunes.

Edinburgh Academy Chamber Choir sang throughout, guiding the audience through many classic Christmas hymns, but the cutest site was provided by the Choir of George Heriot’s Primary One class, who sang Child in a Manger Born beautifully.

The annual Carols For Christmas concert is a wonderful way to kick start the festive period and personally I love a good sing song at this time of year!

As many of you will know I am a very keen supporter of the Sick Kids Friends Foundation and know first hand the wonderful work that they do supporting the Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children and all those who go through that building at some point in their lives.

So I was honoured to be asked to draw the cover illustration for this years programme, which as you can see is a pen sketch of the front of St Cuthbert’s Church, which sits behind Princes Street and Lothian Road.

For more about the work SKFF do and how you can donate or get involved see the link below.

Sick Kids Friends Foundation website

St Cuthberts Church website

st-cuthberts_both

 

 

Daily Sketch

The Usher Hall, a recent commission and now a print for sale

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UsherHall_colourThis is the Usher Hall, on Lothian Road in the west end of Edinburgh. The city’s key venue for visiting national and international orchestras and the main venue for the Edinburgh International Festival.

 

The building owes its construction to whisky, as it was funded by Andrew Usher, a whisky blender who donated £100,000 to the city specifically to fund a new concert hall.

 

The building has featured in my WhereArtI competition before, I sketched the lions head above the entrance, the image is below.

usherlion

 

Although meaning to I have never sketched the building in its entirety before and so I was glad to be asked to for a commission.  If you would like to commission an illustration then prices start at just £65, email me at contact@www.edinburghsketcher.com for more information.

 

You can buy a print of this sketch from just £18 plus postage in my shop.

 

Usher Hall website

 

 

 

 

Daily Sketch

Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Blogmanay, Day 3

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Fireworks_blogmanay2014Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great night. I was sketching at the world famous Edinburgh Street Party with over 80,000 revellers from around the globe.

 

Armed with my torch light, pen and watercolours I set off into the crowded streets of Edinburgh to see what I could capture in my sketchpad. If you follow me on twitter, Instagram or facebook you may of seen quick snaps of my sketches in your timeline but here I have scanned them for better quality.

HotDubTM_blogmanay2014

With so much on offer this year it was hard to decide where to start. Thankfully the #blogmanay media centre was at the Assembly Hall right next to the Hot Dub Time Machine stage on the Mound. Anthem after anthem was blasted out over the cheering crowd which was jumping all the way down to Princes Street. The Sketch above shows the stage and behind it the Museum on the Mound. I could of stayed there all night very happy.

 

MainStage_blogmanay2014

Instead I made my way down the Mound and into the Princes Street Gardens concert just as Soul II Soul were singing ‘Keep on Moving’ underneath Edinburgh Castle. I positioned myself high up towards the back and sketched the stage with the castle above.

 

After a short break and a word or two from compare Grant Stott (who did an excellent job as ever) Lily Allen took the stage for the main event. Belting out her well known pop tunes Lily didn’t disappoint and as she left the stage for the countdown the crowd were going wild.

 

For the first time the Castle was lit with different colours for each second in the final moments of 2014 as thousands of people counted down together. The fireworks were amazing of course, truly spectacular and being in the Gardens it seemed like they were going off all around me. I sketched away trying my best to capture each explosion!

 

I’d like to thank the Edinburgh’s Hogmanay team for helping me with access, it was a great experience and a terrific way to start 2015. I hope you enjoyed my sketching 🙂

 

Edinburgh’s Hogmanay

Edinburgh’s Christmas

Hot Dub Time Machine