Yasmin Ali

This year RCAHMS' Education and Outreach department teamed up with illustrator and designer Mark Kirkham, who runs the blog Edinburgh Sketcher, to host a drawing and information day as part of The Big Draw Campaign, which runs annually at venues throughout the UK, and internationally.

The day was in two parts, with the morning session focussing on an introduction to the Britain from Above project, a historical aerial photography archive by Aerofilms Ltd., of which over 95,000 digitally remastered images taken between 1919-1953, have been scanned and digitised online at the online resource of the same name. The project is run in partnership with English Heritage and RCAHMW, RCAHMS' counterparts in England and Wales.

Aerofilms Ltd. was remarkable as the UK's first commercial aerial photography company, and held specialist stereoscopic equipment at that time not used elsewhere in the UK. As such, their resources and skills were called upon by the military in wartime Britain. In total, their work spans over 1.26 million negatives and 112 million photographs taken over a 75 year period, covering almost every community in the UK at various stages. This provides a resource for understanding the morphology of built and natural environments.

RCAHMS is the acronym for The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, which has a wealth of resources available to members of the public and professionals alike. The Library and Print Room were introduced in the second half of the morning, with a look at original and reproduced samples of maps, drawings and etchings, posters and books available for reference and photocopying.

In the afternoon, Edinburgh Sketcher Mark was invited to host a three hour sketching tour around the Southside, University campus and Old Town, and led a group of around a dozen adults around some of the Southside's hidden corners, noting details, possible techniques and focusing on the juxtaposition between old and new.

Participants were generously equipped with fine ink pens, pencils, sketch pads and watercolour sets and encouraged to sketch under time pressure and not to be afraid to commit pen to paper. The day concluded with an informal group review of the results and framing of a finished piece for each sketcher apprentice to take home.

Weblinks

Britain from The Air - here

The Big Draw - here

Edinburgh Sketcher - here

RCAHMS - here

The Big Draw runs until 3rd November at various venues.

RCAHMS is open to the public from 930-1700 Tues-Fri, and is sited at John Sinclair House, 16 Bernard Terrace, Edinburgh EH8 9NX.