I went on a great Sketch Walk recently with my friend Clare, led by Clifford Stead for Leeds Sanctuary. It was focused around Leeds’ history of the Suffragettes, which was excellent timing for me, as I was in the middle of reading Things A Bright Girl Can Do by the very cool Sally Nicholls. I don’t remember loads but Clifford is extremely knowledgeable about Leeds’ history, so walking around with him is a fun time for a nerd like me.
I’m not usually very interested in drawing buildings but this stroll around the centre of town with Clifford made me much more enthused about the task. This really weird rugby-ball-shaped building next to the ‘spoons at Millennium Square, Clifford tells us was built to be a projection room as part of the general Millenni-mania of building loads of stuff you could get funding for and then never really using that stuff ever again…
So we all need to come up with something to do in this weirdo building please!
This is a view of Pixel Bar from underneath a warm air vent on another odd section of Millennium Square. [Clifford explained to us that underneath this space is a warren of dressing rooms and things like that for the live performances that go on there – and that’s why I was catching a nice warm blast like I was by a leisure centre!] I’ve only been in Pixel bar the once to share a laugh with Joe over Guinness and Lego LOTR on the Xbox. The building in the foreground of this drawing is where Leonora Cohen smashed a load of windows to get the attention of Asquith when he was up in Leeds on some Prime Business.
I’m not going to become a regular at drawing spaces and places, I don’t think, but the experience did whet my appetite a little so here’s another drawing from Leeds’ city center, and still one of my favourite pubs, The Angel, can be found down a narrow wee ginnel off Briggate.
