This was sketched on Burnt Oak Broadway, at the top of Watling Avenue, on the corner of Stag Lane. This is another from the part of London where I am from, and this is the iconic building with the clock tower that was originally the Co-Op’s ‘finest grocery store’. That was long gone by the time I came into the world, and it was several things while I was growing up (I recall buying a stylus for my record player in there when it was a department store), I think it’s Peacocks now. Either way, that big clock tower sits at the top of Burnt Oak looking over us all, and it always reminds me of my Nan, who we called Nam, who lived in the flats across the road and spent many days in the Stag pub, directly opposite. Looking at it makes me feel very sad, and very happy.
On the other corner of Stag Lane there is the Nat West bank. This is the branch where I had my first ever bank account. Kids form the 1980s in Britain will remember the Nat West piggies, and I had the whole set of piggy banks, awarded when you saved to a certain level. My dad still has them, though one of them broke falling from a shelf when I was a teenager (yes, I had old piggy banks on my shelf as a teenager, and I used them too).
It was a cloudy day when I sketched this, the first day of June. We were coming to the end of our trip, and I was feeling pretty exhausted. Travelling back home takes it out of you, so it’s nice to unwind and just draw stuff. I haven’t done much drawing since I got back to Davis, hardly any in fact, and stress is getting the better of me, so I think it’s time I took my own advice and made time for it.
reached the musuem, which had just decided (wisely) to close. The buses then stopped, as did the tube, and cars were quickly becoming buried beneath feet of snow. Thankfully my dad managed to dig his car out and came to rescue us, though the roads were treacherous, and we had to crawl along. Snow was coming down in ice cubes. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see those little paper umbrellas too. We got home, and warmed up, and then I went straight back outside with my little sketching stool to fill the last page of moleskine sketchbook #6 and freeze my fingers off. The snow had just stopped falling, and I had to capture this before it all vanished (little did I know it wouldn’t vanish for another week and a half).
