Month: August 2011

in this quiet little place

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vasco da gama

After arriving in Lisbon, I bumped into fellow Urban Sketcher Jason Das at the hostel, and we took the bus down to the historic district of Belem. First stop was the massive Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, a huge UNESCO-listed monastery built in the highly decorative Manueline fashion. Above, a surprise, the tomb of Vasco da Gama, the real Vasco da Gama! The one they named that Brazilian football club after! The Mosteiro is pretty epic, and if I’d had time I would have attempted a larger all-encompassing drawing from the outside, but I liked to draw smaller snapshots, capturing some of the details.

jeronimos details
mosteiro sm

I haven’t done much drawing inside large religious buildings, with their epic grandeur and special light. We don’t have any cathedrals here in Davis. It’s something I would like to practise though; I’ve seen some other people’s sketches inside such buildings and it’s an inspiration.

mosteiro dos jeronimos

squeezy jet

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luton to lisbon
And so, I went to Portugal. After days of rain and crowds in London, it was nice to see some clear blue sky upon landing at Lisbon’s nice and modern airport. I had to first go through the mess that is Luton airport though, which seems to run on the ‘people will put up with anything’ theory (such as making people pay just to drop people off). Eventually though I was on my very orange Easyjet and flying away from England, excited about all the sketching yet to come. As ever I had to draw the view on the plane, but I had no window seat so couldn’t draw what was outside. I used my orange micron and I like the results. As I drew, attendants went up and down the aisle over and over again trying to sell goods and nonsense. Easyjet flights seem to be run by Del Boy Trotter, and it’s not as if they’re all that cheap like they used to be. Still, it got me to the actual Lisbon rather than a hundred miles away, so I’m happy. 

When I arrived in Lisbon I got myself a Lisbon Card (useful if you have time to visit all those museums and sights, a bit of a big waste of money if ultimately you don’t get to do that), and hopped on the very convenient AeroBus straight downtown. As I was sketching on the bus (below), I met a woman who teaches at a London art school and is also an art critic for various national papers, in Lisbon to cover another big art exhibition. I told her about the Symposium, and she popped by a couple of days later to meet with the organizers and the sketchers. for me, this was my first sketch in Lisbon, so I had to make it colourful! I’m getting used to whipping out the waterbrush and paints on public transport now, it’s pretty compact!

AeroBus sketch

i could drink a case of you

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red squeaky bag
I thought I’d just share drawings I did of the bags I took with me to Lisbon. You’ll not be interested in the blue suitcase, it’s just a suitcase and is not of interest to the urban sketcher. Here it is anyway. The interesting bag is the red one, which I decided to bring after much deliberation and deciding, as my main sketchbook-shoulder-bag. I have gone through many bags in the search for the right one, and in so many ways this bag (by Eddie Bauer) fits the bill perfectly – the right size, the right number of zipped compartments, and pockets on each side that are just big enought to carry a can of drink (so it doesn’t take space up inside the bag). Perfick. Except for one thing.

It squeaks. It bloody squeaks. It’s the strap, I have tried several straps but for some reason it doesn’t lose the squeak. It sounds as though I have mice in my bag. I sound like a rusty robot walking down the street. Oh well. The bag still worked perfectly for me in Lisbon, though I did get a lot of attention from cats.

blue case

One thing I’d like to point out about suitcases. The baggage carousel at the airport, to be specific. When you get off a plane, and go to collect your bags, you don’t need to stand right at the carousel, with your entire family and trolley and a hundred other bags, you can stand back a little and let other people see the bags. When you see yours coming, you can step forward and pull it off. It’s EASY. But no, people apparently think it’s better to stand practically on top of the moving carousel, thereby blocking the view for anyone else and standing in the way of anyone who wants to pull their bags off (bags which they see only at the very last second, because a crowd of people are in the way). Grumble grumble grumble, dear editor I know, but airports are little enough fun as it is. So please folks, stand about four or five feet back from the carousel at least. Grumble over (can you tell I don’t like airports?).

they’re changing the guard at buckingham palace

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buckingham palace

Perhaps it was the hangover of royal wedding fever that got me wanting to go to and sketch at Buckingham Palace. Maybe it was just that I decided, on this sketching day in London, to get out at Green Park, where I’d not been in such a long time, and walk over to the Mall rather than head down to the River or the City. Either way, I had forgotten about the Changing of the Guard, and arrived at the Palace about half an hour before it started, just as the crowds were gathering. The Queen was home, as the sovereign’s flag was flying, and amazingly the sun was shining. It had rained every day, heavily, since I’d been in London and so perhaps this was to be my lucky day! (Fat chance, it bucketed down later on.) ‘The Mall’ by the way is pronounced as in ‘pal’ not as in ‘small’, a note to American tourists. There are no Sears stores or Gaps or food courts (though I’m sure Victoria has a few secrets). The Queen’s guards know their audience though. Sticking to tradition, as they performed their historic ceremony at the gates of the royal residence, the Scots guards in their bright red jackets and tall bearskin hats belted out the theme tune to ‘Superman’. Or perhaps it was ‘Superma’am’?

st james park

I made hay while the sun shone. That’s St.James’s Park above, one of the smaller but more decorated Royal Parks, looking off towards Big Ben and the London Eye. Below, a statue of the Queen Mum, and behind her a statue of Colin Firth.

queen mum and king george vi

i scream for 11p lemonade sparkles

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ice cream van
The irony about ice cream vans when we were kids is that they really kept us healthy. Sure they offered us Rocket ice lollies and Funny Foots and 99s with a Flake, but we got our exercise in running after them. We would hear the jingling of the bells (thinking about it now I can still taste vanilla on a humid July afternoon), and there would be a dash about the house, what do you want? Quick! Quick! followed by the mad scramble outside along with the other kids on the block, only to see the ice cream van which leave the bushy corner of Kirton Walk and head down towards Colchester Road. You knew it had a stop about halfway up there, so you ran and ran and ran, until you got a stitch and could barely breathe let alone order an 11p lemonade Sparkle. More often than not, we’d make it, and come away happy (and well exercised). It was an achievement, something Kids Today surely don’t understand, they probably download their ice lollies from the internet or something.

This one wasn’t going anywhere. It was parked outside the British Museum. It has a very happy face, doesn’t it? I think they should still make people run a couple of blocks before they allow them to buy anything though. It’s all part of the experience. We did also do a little sketching in the British Museum Great Court, which I hadn’t visited in years. I’d like to spend some more time in there sketching, really do a big one of the roof and go through all the great exhibits, but alas I live so far away these days. It’s such a great place to visit, and completely free to enter.

  
british museum great hall

aye aye, captain

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captain kidd pub, wapping

The Captain Kidd pub in Wapping. My friend and fellow sketcher Simon has been telling me about it for a long time, but we’d never been because it’s, you know, in Wapping. Still, with Wapping and it’s less salubrious denizens Murdoch and pals being very much in the news that week it seemed like a good idea to pop down there. We took the London Overground (the old orange East London line, now revamped and extended with swanky new trains and a new name) and went down by the river. The old pub literally backs onto the thames, and we grabbed a pint each and sat on a bench looking across the water. The rain would eventually force us inside, but not after a quick sketch of the scenery, and another attempt at sketching my friend (who really should be very easy to capture, but I always get him just wrong, it’s almost become a running theme; next time, I promise, I’ll practise more!). After some catching up and quite a bit of laughing, we sketched inside and I drew the scene above, before I had to head back home. Such a brief trip to London this time, not long enough with my good friends! 

simon sketching at wapping