Designer, serial urban sketcher and occasional fine artist.
“As a professional commercial designer, I found myself spending almost the entire working week sitting at my desk in our George Street studio in front of the computer, eating lunch at the same desk. I needed to break the cycle. But how? After an inspirational visit to the Royal Scottish Academy Summer Exhibition in 2017, I hatched a plan. Get out of the studio one lunchtime a week for a whole year, and do a sketch of whatever took my fancy. And to make things interesting, set a maximum time limit of 15 minutes per sketch, no more. Oh, and no rubbing out”
Andrew Glidden studied at the Edinburgh College of Art in the early 1980s and spent almost 20 years living in London and working all over the world as a professional commercial designer.
He set up his own creative design and branding agency with his wife in 1997, before moving the business lock, stock and barrel to Edinburgh in 2002, where it continues to thrive. Andrew undertook a personal, one-year long, project to undertake one fifteen-minute sketch a week for a whole year, capturing the buildings and scenes around Edinburgh and beyond, using a variety of media from 6b pencil to watercolour. Completely unplanned at the outset, this resulted in a show of all 52 sketches, from which he donated all profits from the sale of the original sketches during the show to Alzheimer’s Research UK, a sum of over £7,000.
52 in 52 Series 2
On New Year’s Day, 2021, Andrew started his second series of 52 weekly fifteen-minute sketches, intending to cover a full calendar year of drawings. On December 26th, 2021, Andrew completed number 52 of the series. A show of all 52 series 2 drawings is currently being held in The Dundas Street Gallery, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ, closing at 12.00 Sunday 2nd October 2nd, 2022.
Andy is auctioning the largest of the second series drawings during the show, the proceeds from this picture will be donated to Alzheimer’s Research UK.
The auction closes at 12.00 on Sunday 2nd. October. Currently, the highest bid is £300. Bids of £320 are now being sought – get in touch urgently if you would like to support this important charity and get a piece of art into the bargain!
All 52 of the new drawings can be seen on Instagram @andrewglidden.art
Contact Andrew for further details or sales enquiries.