Join us for a fun sketching session at the Kirkaldy Testing Works where we will visually explore the geometry of Victorian engineering. Observing angles, shapes and textures of the machinery we will play with composition to create lively sketches. You will be guided through creative exercises using pencil and pens and turn mechanical forms into expressive linework, with interesting perspectives or abstract patterns. Artists have been fascinated and inspired by machinery where mechanical objects become artistic subjects. Kirkaldy’s historic testing machines will be providing inspiration for this session!
No experience is necessary, all levels are welcome and drawing materials are provided.
About the Kirkaldy
We know Bankside today as a place of innovation and creativity, but step inside Kirkaldy’s Testing Works at 99 Southwark Street and you will see that’s nothing new! Just a stone’s throw from Tate Modern, this authentic 1874 materials testing workshop houses Victorian engineer David Kirkaldy’s mighty 116-ton Universal Testing Machine — so important in testing the materials that built Britain, not to mention Australia, the USA and Germany, it is now protected with a Grade II* Listing.
Materials like wrought iron and steel powered the Victorian engineering boom: they opened up new possibilities, but they also brought new challenges. David Kirkaldy was a Scottish engineer who discovered his talent for accurate testing and measurement while an apprentice at Napier’s shipyard in Glasgow. He was convinced of the importance of ‘Facts not Opinions’ that he designed, patented and commissioned his mighty Universal Testing Machine and moved to Bankside — where his purpose-built Testing & Experimenting works still declares his motto above the door.
Appropriately, David Kirkaldy also had a talent for drawing as well as data collection: in 1861 his drawing of RMS Persia was the first engineering drawing to be exhibited as a work of art at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
