01 October 2010

Stephen Wiltshire gets a Unique View of the Shard for the Big Draw

Artist Stephen Wiltshire has been given a unique perspective on the new London building he is most looking forward to seeing built, the Shard, to draw an exclusive image for the Make Your Mark on the Future event for Big Draw.

Stephen was given special access to the roof of Guys Hospital, which directly overlooks the site of the Shard. On Friday 15 October he will completed a drawing of the site from memory, based in the office of Sellar Design and Development, the developers behind the Shard. The drawing will be on display in Hays Galleria for the Big Draw's Make Your Mark on the Future: from London Bridge to Tower Bridge event on 22 and 23 October.

The Big Draw has now become the largest and most influential drawing campaign in the world, bringing thousands of people together for the hands-on experience of drawing.

London's Mayor Boris Johnson will launch Make Your Mark on the Future, a special Big Draw weekend on Friday 22 October, with free events along the river from London Bridge to Tower Bridge celebrating London's changing skyline with architects, artists, archaeologists and cartoonists.

Sponsors of this year's event include the Shard team made up of the developer Sellar, architect Renzo Piano Building Workshop, and project team Mace, Turner & Townsend, Arup, WSP and Davis Langdon.

Stephen Wiltshire is a London-based artist with a particular talent for drawing lifelike, accurate representations of cities, sometimes after having only observed them briefly. He is perhaps best known for his range of panoramas of some of the world's most iconic cities - New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rome, Madrid, Frankfurt, Dubai and Jerusalem.