Liz Ackerley has run two very successful sketching workshops at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House encouraging the people who attend to capture their individual memories of the places they love in sketches and illustrations. As an urban sketcher, she says ‘ My work is fundamentally about places and occasions: capturing a sense of place and a sense of occasion/emotion is my focus, telling the story through the image. A sort of visual journalism: reportage’
In her latest exhibition ‘From Chorlton to the City’, she is showing her sketches and illustrations in the World Peace Cafe gallery at the Kadampa Meditation Centre on High Lane in Chorlton and I went along to view the sketches and collages she is exhibiting. I love the colour and immediacy of the work – and the way it captures a moment in time in the history of a place as she commits it to her paper. Do check out her blog for 2 posts which explore how she’s put the exhibition together. And if you get a chance, do visit the exhibition – it’s on until 29 July and the cafe at the Kadampa Meditation Centre is well worth the trip!
The next sketching workshop at the House is being held on 10 August – come along and practice catching your memories of place with pen, pencil and water colour in a simple sketch book.
Lesley – House volunteer
