Bristol Sketchers: Bristol Harbourside

Fantastic, August-temperature day in the city centre.  A small group of increasingly familiar faces met outside the Arnolfini :) We set ourselves an hour and a quarter to capture elements of our surroundings.  I chose to visit the Millenium Square, stopping on the way to sketch Pero's Bridge.

I moved on to the square and wasn't prepared for the cacophony of noise produced by the screaming crowds of children playing in the water features (tho' every pillar in the area warns them that the waters are not suitable for paddling and may contain sharp objects...), that and the volume of the giant tv screen presenting non-stop BBC news coverage.

I sat in a relatively calm spot and made my first attempt (in years) at a colour study.  I chose the planetarium, its polished mirror surface absorbing the surrounding buildings, the sky, the water and breaking it into regular portions.

As I grasped this task a small boy came up to me and asked "Are you good?" Um? "Are you good?" "Are you good, at drawing?"  I asked him what he meant by good, but he only persisted with his closed question.  I decided to say "Yes" and leave it at that.  He left me immediately and I thought that would be the end of it.

As I was just about ready to call it a day with the sketch, the small boy returned.  "No.  No, no!" he cried. When I asked him what was the matter, he replied "It's silver" and walked off.