Cafe Sketchers

About 15 of us met yesterday at the Crypt Cafe at St Martin in the Fields. We had drinks/lunch, whatever, and set down to sketch and chat. Saw some friendly familiar faces and some new ones. Cyn is a brilliant sketcher and gave us some tips about pens and so on. After a few hours I went to take a peek at the controversial new Kate painting in the NPG. At first I thought I was going blind as there seemed to be a mist in front of my eyes as I looked at the painting. I rubbed my eyes, and no, the mist was kind of painted over the portrait. Apart from the eyes, which looked as though they had been carved from marble or glass, the rest of it kind of dwindled into the mist thing. The mouth looked as though she was tensing up the muscles in a slightly uncomfortable way. The whole thing cheered me up a bit, I disliked it so much, and it made me think we were all in with a chance. But at the same time it was rather dreary to think it was the best the NPG could do. Still, I supppose the commercial art world is all about patronage, and the painter had won the portrait competition a few years ago so was being handed a lollipop, so to speak. Pity he smeared it all over the painting. Oh well, it does me good to be nasty every once in a while. The truth is that whoever painted the damn thing was in for a hard time, either from the critics or the public, and probably both. I then trotted off to Cass Art and bought a new pencil and a couple of art bags. I can never get enough of these, though the colours have been rather vivid recently. I wish they would get black, white, brown ones, etc. They used to do a very good olivey green. Ordered the Copic pens recommended by Cyn online. Today I posted a couple of bits and pieces and sketched a girl at the coffee place. She looked rather picturesque in a red and white checked jacket with black mittens and red bow wristlets with diamante in the middle. Very nice cats eye reddish specs too. Due to take some pieces around to Del for the exhibition at WAC gallery. I shall do this tomorrow as I did not receive the information about it until I had already committed myself for a large part of Saturday. Need to do some printing tomorrow morning.Needless to say no paint in the shop and Nicos turning up on Friday. Sod's law.