Saturday morning, London, I didn’t have any concrete plans for the day but was meeting old friends in the evening. I had the whole day to explore and sketch, but wasn’t completely sure where I’d go yet. I had a list of places I wanted to sketch on this trip, places in London that I had not been to in a very long time. I decided to head for Notting Hill Gate, and walk down to Portobello Road Market. I honestly cannot remember the last time I went there, maybe once when my wife first moved to England 21 years ago? I know I went there with my mate Terry once in about 2001. In the mid-90s I used to come to Notting Hill a lot as I had a friend who lived here, though even then I didn’t really go to the Market very often, usually because it was always so busy, and I didn’t really like crowds. Also I worked on Saturdays, didn’t I, back then? Memory fades. Still it had been a really long time since I was even last in Notting Hill, so it was an interesting experience to be back, and there is lots to sketch. First of all, the Central Line was jam packed, and everyone was getting out at Notting Hill Gate tube. Portobello Market is a really popular tourist destination, and it seemed like most of the voices I heard were Italian or American. After a little wandering about I walked down to the Market, past all the little vintage clothes stores and antique stalls and colourful shopfronts. I ate an early lunch at a place that does eggs called ‘Eggslut’ and paid like thirteen quid for a salmon and egg sandwich. Thirteen quid. Prices in England are through the roof right now. When I was a kid, my friend Terry used to help out his Grandad at Portobello Market on Saturdays, his grandad Charlie Bonello (who was Maltese and a great laugh, he used to tell us silly jokes) had a market stall down here, and there was one phrase he would always say whenever Terry would buy something his grandad thought was overpriced, he’d say “50p down the market!” So that became out catchphrase (one of them) for years since. I thought of him when I was paying thirteen quid for a salmon and egg sandwich, I could hear him telling me “Thirteen quid?! 50p down the market!” Except this was that same market. Times have changed since the late 80s, I guess.

I found a spot next to a big fruit and veg stall, overlooking the crossroads with Colville Terrace and Elgin Crescent, next to this trendy looking tea shop, and stood for a long while drawing the scene as it snaked towards me. There were a lot of people around, so I drew passers-by in that usual way, not really drawing anyone in particular but mixing and matching bits of different people as they went by. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is entirely coincidental, although someone did pass by with that exact mohawk and beard combination, so he had to go in the book (he probably wasn’t wearing a massive white shirt but I was tired and lazy with my observations. First drawing of the day, and I was tired already? Well I’d been out late the night before, but I was standing here for quite a while and my legs were hurting. My legs hurt even looking at this drawing. I didn’t want to sit, you need a better view. I coloured most of it in later (except for a few parts I’d started), but there was a lot of ink drawing to do on site, and that Fabriano watercolour sketchbook really makes your pen work on that paper. I had ‘pre-prepared’ the paper a little bit this time, adding a thin wash of paint over the pages the day before, and that helped the pen move a little bit faster but still not as smooth as in the Moleskine. Still I love to sketch a market, and now I’ve finally sketched Portobello. If you want a print of this, well it will be more than 50p down the market, I need to offset the cost of that sandwich somehow…

At the entrance of Portobello Road itself, where it curves into Pembridge Road, there’s this big yellow pub called the Sun in Splendour. I’ve never been in there actually, and didn’t on this day either, but I wanted to draw this colourful corner so I stood over by the e-bike stand on the other side of the road. The first thing I drew was the pile of orange rubbish bags on the pavement. They were soon taken by the garbage trucks. Why keep those in you ask? Well I have my reasons. Look at all the people making their way to or from Portobello Market, I didn’t colour those in as I went along, and you can see there are four people in red, almost entirely evenly spaced out, which is weird. Anyway one thing I wanted to do was try out my gold gel pen for the pub name. I did this a few times in sketches on this trip, and sometimes it didn’t really stand out as much, but in this case it did. I had to remember not to spell ‘Splendour’ in the American way. It did remind me of the sugar substitute they use in the US.

Around here, I saw a lot of references to the 1999 film Notting Hill, the one with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts which should be considered very cheesy and a bit naff, but in fact I love that film, I’m a fan of lots of the people in it, and sure it’s definitely cheese, but who cares. I remember one night at university when I was doing drama, I wasn’t feeling that well and had worked late on drama projects, I forget exactly what we were working on, but it went on really late and I was pretty exhausted. In those days I had a very long tube journey home back from Mile End to Burnt Oak, and was not massively looking forward to it. Sometimes I would stop halfway and get out at Camden Town, and go and see a film at the Odeon on Parkway before heading back to bed. On this one night I didn’t even get to Camden, I popped into a cinema in Stepney Green (which is probably long gone) and watched Notting Hill, and I have to say it totally cheered me up. Sure that silly Elvis Costello rendition of “She” was crooning all over the place, but the soundtrack was pretty great, and I dunno, it just put me in a good mood, and I was ready and up for things again the next day. Doing a drama degree was pretty exhausting, London was pretty exhausting. In fact I went back to Mile End on this trip, visited my old university, did some sketching; more on that in a later post.

Further up Pembridge Road, the little shops lining the street up towards Notting Hill Gate are colourful and worth sketching. That fish and chip shop across the street was busy, next to a vintage clothes shop. There have always been those little shops around here. I’m not really into old clothes or fashion, with the obvious exception of football shirts, of which I’m a football fashion afficionado. I did notice that many of the people in the street were wearing light puffer jackets, it wasn’t cold but it wasn’t that warm either. I stood against an iron railing and drew them, while people sat on steps next to me eating their lunch and smoking. There seem to be a lot more smokers about, and loads more of those bloody vapers, with their little plastic vapes and huge clouds of sticky sickly vapor. At least with smokers you can see the puff of smoke coming when walking behind them, with vapers it just appears as you’re walking by and fogs up the narrow sidewalk, gross. Definitely worse than it was a few years ago. Anyway I moved down a little bit towards cleaner air and sat on some steps to add some paint. As I did, someone came up and said “this is going to be an odd question but can I film you while you draw? Just for a few seconds.” I was like, sure why not. At least you asked, which is nice, I wouldn’t really have cared. Then about five minutes later, I swear, a girl came up and said, “Do you mind if I ask you something?” I said, to her surprise, “You want to film me sketching?” “Yes!” she said, “Is that ok?”  She did have her phone in her hand as if ready to shoot so it was a good guess, but I said “Sure no problem, it’s just funny ‘cos you’re the second person in five minutes to ask me!” I suppose people like to see people sketching the world. I love being a tourist.

The last thing I drew that day was an old pub I have been in before, the Prince Albert, but not since about 1997 or 1998 I think. It’s changed a lot since then, but it’s still there round the corner from Notting Hill Gate tube station. It’s pretty swanky inside with its fancy food; I popped in to use the toilet after sketching outside for a while, my legs getting very tired by this point, and ended up staying in for a pint and to add some of the colour. That red car outside, it was stopped in traffic for a little bit and I drew it very quickly, probably not very accurately but it seemed appropriate for the area. Yeah I got a pint, it was £7.10, and not that nice (I didn’t even finish it). “£7.10” I said, “50p down the Market”. Turns out £7.10 is a pretty average price for a pint in London these days, it’s gone up a lot since even last year. Everything has, food, transport, energy. It’s a good job the Buck is still strong against the Quid. There was a big screen on in the pub playing one of the play-off games, I think it was one with Notts County playing Chesterfield at Wembley for a chance to return to the Football League (wait, neither Notts County nor Chesterfield were in the Football League? I didn’t realize). I didn’t stay for the whole thing but there was a group of Aussies (in a London pub, you are never very far from a group of Aussies) watching the game and discussing their careers in the music industry, from what I could gather, I wasn’t really listening, could have been Jason Donovan for all I know. It was nice to get off my feet for a bit though. I love wandering and sketching, but you need to stop and rest. After this, I wandered Notting Hill for a bit more, walking down to the Churchill arms on Kensington Church Street, which was a pub I used to really enjoy evenings out in years ago, and is on my bucket list to draw, but I didn’t have time to sketch on this occasion. I took a quick snap (for a from-photo pub-drawing to be done later) and headed to Leicester Square where I’d be meeting up with some very old friends for an evening of dinner and drinks and laughs. It was fun to wander around this old haunt for a bit though.