flying back home again

July 21, 2023July 19, 2023Leave a comment

Here is yet another in-flight sketch. You’d think I’d be bored of them by now (I am, actually) but drawing on a long journey does help me to relax. I’m so sick of flying and airports, but it’s the quickest way to get to the place 5000 miles away that I need to get to, since teleportation doesn’t exist. As on the flight over, I had the whole row to myself and the legroom was alright (very unlike my more recent flights to/from the UK). I was able to add more detail to or finish off some of the many sketches I’d done on this trip, and it was pretty smooth all in all. I drew this in the small Fabriano Venezia book, I love using pencil in that book and will try to use pencil a bit more, to do something different to the pen thing the whole time. It was a productive trip, I went back to places I had not been in many many years, put them in my sketchbook, saw people I’d not seen in years, but at the end of it I really wanted to get back home. I love going home to London, but I really love coming home again to California. I’m really lucky I ended up here.

all the world’s a stag

July 20, 2023July 19, 2023Leave a comment

The main reason for my trip to London in May (when we had already arranged to go in June) was because one of oldest best mates Simon (actor, director, writer, photographer) was getting married, and was arranging to have a Stag Party in May. For those of you who are not of the British persuasion, a Stag Party is what Americans call a Bachelor Party, and attended traditionally by male mates. It’s also traditionally very drinky, and this one was certainly that. I brought along my sketchbook to try and document some of the fun for posterity. I’ve known Simon for many years, we met at university, and it was a fellow university friend Will, who I’d not seen in about six years, who organized the whole day, which took a lot of work. The first activity was one I’d never done before nor had much thought about, urban axe throwing. It was at a place called Whistle Punks just off of Oxford Street, and turned out to be a lot of fun. I was pretty useless at first, but then starting racking up loads of points, albeit no actual wins – out of 14 of us, I came second in the points tally, but somehow lost all three of my matches. I’d definitely do that again.

Beers started even at the axe place, and continued in a nearby pub. The groom to be had lots of friends from schooldays there, who I think I only met once before at his 21st birthday party (late 90s, Rat and Parrot in Harrow; that evening had a similar outcome!) and they made sure he never went thirsty. I remember my own stag party back in 2004, well I say ‘remember’, I remember it starting, and some details after that, but the remaining details are just what Simon told me about afterwards! This was a month before my actual wedding; on the night before my wedding, in Las Vegas, Simon and I had a much quieter evening watching Spider-Man 2 on the IMAX at the Luxor hotel, while my wife and her friends all went to watch the Thunder From Down Under, whatever that is). It was nice talking with Simon’s friends I did not know, and adding them to the sketchbook.

We all took the Elizabeth Line across London before going to an early dinner at a place called Gunpowder, which served very nice food, and as it turns out also sold tequila. After that, we headed to the main event, which was a ‘mixology’ place called the Moonshine Saloon, a kind-of interactive theatre event, where you provide the alcohol and they mix all these exotic drinks for your party while you’re all dressed in Wild West garb, and actors playing cowboy era characters play this whole bootlegging storyline around you (in not super authentic American accents, but hey, I’ve lived here for 18 years and I still can’t do one). It was a lot of fun, the ponchos were comfy if a little bit warm!

The last place of the night was a little east end bar, and I drew a bit more in my new Fabriano Venezia sketchbook (I had picked it up that morning from the London Graphic Centre, very good with pencil and watercolour), sketching some of Simon’s actor friends, and you can see I’ve had my fair share of the liquid stuff by that point too. I don’t know how much of that part the groom-to-be remembers, but it was a fun day and evening all in all, and I’m glad I was able to fly out there and share in it, and Will did an excellent job putting it all together. As I walked back toward Central London through the City late at night, I passed by, of all things, a costumed charity fun run, at 1am through the dark streets of the City. Bizarre. I flew back to America a couple of days later. Simon’s married now and he and his new are wife currently on honeymoon, somewhere in Alaska…

Afternoon at the Nags

July 19, 2023July 19, 20232 Comments

After spending the day in South Ken and Knightsbridge, I sought out another place I have not been to in over two decades. The Nags Head, in a quiet back road behind the busy Knightsbridge, was an old favourite place of mine in the late 90s, where I would go with my friends Rob (a mate from university), and Nick (an old schoolfriend of Rob, whose family lived in an apartment steps away from the pub). It’s an old place, stock full with interesting decoration, like a step into another world. And it had not changed in all this time. The landlord Kevin Moran was there; I remember him from all those years ago, and I had a nice chat with him while sat inside the pub, cooling off from the very hot weather outside. He was telling me of his various travels. When I first came by, I actually started to do a sketch outside, with the intention of finishing that and coming in to cool off, but I was already so warm that I did only the outline outside, stood in the narrow street in the sunshine. There was a group of South African lads outside (not pictured in the sketch); when I was waiting to order a pint I heard one say to Mr Moran, while pointing out a sketch of the pub that was hanging on the wall, that he saw another artist outside doing a drawing a bit like this. There were about two or three different sketches of the pub on the walls, inside and outside. I said, “Yeah that was me!” and showed them what I’d done already. The music was nice in there, very relaxing, and Mr. Moran chatted with his customers, and would ask how people were doing, sometimes popping out for a chat with the South African lads. I sketched the inside as I drank my cold beer, sat in a little corner I have a photo of me sitting in back in about 1999. I remember spending new year’s eve 2001-2002 in here, one of the last times I visited, and a Canadian friend Ben (who I lived with for a short while in France; I was back visiting from Aix at the time) was with me and entertaining people with card tricks, being a magician. No cellphones allowed in here still; back in those days only a few of us had them, and I never liked using them much anyway, but still funny to see the same sign. I chatted for a while with another old regular called David, a well-travelled man who loves London but was reassuring that I’d done the right thing by moving to California, because California is pretty great (and I agree). I showed Mr. Moran the sketch afterwards and he liked it, and later on I finished off the outside drawing as well. It was really nice to find this place again; without the modern GPS on my phone, I think I may have struggled to remember where it was.

This last sketch below was drawn very close by on Knightsbridge, the top of the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park hotel. It’s a pretty glorious building, though I was getting tired of drawing and left it at the roof and the speckled May sky. I’m fairly sure I’ve been into the bar there before with Rob and his pals, back in those late 90s. Hyde Park Corner has some of the most expensive hotels in London. I did pop into Harrods nearby for a little bit, to take a look around the Food Court, but I didn’t stay long as I needed to get to my sister’s place by Grahame Park, Colindale, for dinner, and then back home for a late night Zoom meeting with California (that finished at 1am my time…). I was pretty tired after a day of sketching and stepping back in time, but it was well worth it.

A visit to the V&A

July 18, 2023July 18, 20233 Comments

I had another day of London sketching ahead of me. On this particular trip, I often worked remotely in the evenings, but got some much needed sketchbook exploring done in the daytime. I like South Kensington, so I headed in that direction. I didn’t have much of a plan, maybe I’d go to the Natural History Museum (add a dinosaur to the sketchbook) but I got out at the station and remembered I really wanted to draw that station. South Ken is a world away from Burnt Oak. Whenever I come back to London from California, one of the first things I notice is the litter on the streets. People really don’t just throw their garbage on the ground in Davis, but they definitely do in Burnt Oak, you see cans and broken glass and (the newest litter item) those thin vape packets, because the past few years has seen loads of people suddenly start vaping, way more than you would see here. So in addition to the cigarette butts thrown liberally on the ground, now people just throw their vape packets too, along with sweet wrappers, bottles, bits of old furniture, someone else’s problem. The top of my mum’s street especially has random trash just left there for weeks, broken glass all over the pavement. It’s very noticeable when you live somewhere where people generally don’t litter. That’s why I notice it when I go to South Kensington, because the streets there are usually well kept and clean, much more than in north London. Anyway, as I stood in this sparklingly clean utopia, worried that my dirty Burnt Oak feet would smudge the posh pavements, I whipped out the sketchbook and drew the tube station, using that gold pen again. I have this idea of drawing all the London Underground stations, but not just from photos as I did when I was drawing all the Leslie Greene stations (and as I have seen some other online sketchers do – drawing tube stations is very popular as a subject, I wholeheartedly endorse it!), but in person, which is a bit impractical, given that I live 5000 miles away and usually have better things to do when I come home. But it was good to notch another one off my list. I went to explore the area.

I remembered that I had wanted to draw the V&A building at some point. I always loved that massive museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, but I realized I had not been inside in about twenty years, maybe more, yes I think maybe twenty-five years, I think I went to an exhibition with my mum and my sister in the late 90s. Wow. I used to pass by it on my old bus tour, and tell tourists that it was one of the gems of London, free to go inside, packed full of visual decorative delights. We used to have to go there on school day trips with my art class, as they would encourage us to go around with our sketchbooks looking for patterns to inspire us, and take them back to make into some sort of graphic art. I used to sketch in those days too, out and about, though not quite as much as now. More often than not those school day-trips would be an excuse to mess about with my friends. I found a shaded spot opposite the building, on the very busy Thurloe Place (I always thought that was still Brompton Road but checking the map I guess that I was wrong). I had penciled an outline to draw a two page panorama, but I got a bit impatiend with that idea and kept it to just a page and a bit. It’s an amazing building. On a little green a minute or so away were about five or six burly police officers, standing just away from a group of young people all sat in a circle carrying “Just Stop Oil” banners. This might kick off I thought, so I stayed away, but not too far away that I wouldn’t see what would happen. Nothing did. When I was done with the drawing, I sat on a bench and thought about lunch, I was hungry. However, I really wanted to go inside and explore. Hunger be damned, I went in.

I am a bit annoyed with myself that I have not been going to the V&A on every trip back to London for the past two decades, because it really is amazing in there. I could have spent the entire rest of the day sketching and exploring. I found myself thinking, I should not look at too much, I should save that for when I come back next time with my wife, she’d love this. But I had to finish off this Fabriano sketchbook, I only had one page left. I filled that with a few items seen above (coloured in later). What I love about the V&A is seeing other lone people in there with their sketchbooks, just drawing random statues or sculptures. My people. I then got to finally open my new Moleskine watercolour sketchbook, and I sat in the Weston Cast room, which I remember coming into drawing when I was a schoolboy. It was a good Page 1 for the sketchbook, and (hidden away from the view of guards who probably wouldn’t allow it) I sneakily added in a little bit of watercolour paint. I had this small set of metallic paints I was eager to try out, and I’d been messing about with the gold pen enough on this trip, so I added in this bronze/gold paint to see what effect it would have. As you can see, in the scan it just shows up as bit dull, but in the real photo you can really see it shimmer, as the real objects did in real life. I stealthily snuck my little paints away, like a ninja, and explored the museum a bit more. I was really hungry though, so I walked up Brompton Road towards Knightsbridge, and had a pretty unsatisfying McDonalds.

The St. Moritz

July 17, 2023July 18, 2023Leave a comment

On one evening I decided to pop into a place I’d not visited in about twenty years, the St. Moritz on Wardour Street. I drew the outside of it last year (well, the restaurant part; I’ve never actually eaten there, or have I? Actually I think I did once) when I had my first London visit after the pandemic, so I was keen to see what the inside of the little downstairs club looked like, to see if it was the same; sure enough, it had not changed in two decades (and probably hadn’t changed for two or three decades before that). There was a guy with a big sketchbook drawing away, so I was like, that’s great to see, I’m going to draw the scene too – see below. My eyesight wasn’t so great in that light and it was hard to make out the colours I was putting on the page, and while it was a quick panorama, i was using the uni-ball signo 0.38 so it was a lot of scratching lines. A brush pen would have been quicker. I had been using my brush pen for quick people sketches. I did chat with the other artist for a bit, I guess he’s a regular, and we looked at our art materials. i was reminded of the late 90s when I would come here sometimes on nights when I had a lot of reading to do for my French literature classes, and so I’d go into one of the little tables in the side room and read there, Le Pere Goriot or whatever. The music being played was a mix of Bowie and other stuff like Bowie, so not much change there then either. The St. Moritz has been around for ages, with so much having changed in this city, it’s nice to go back to somewhere that hasn’t changed a bit.

quick soho people

July 16, 2023July 18, 2023Leave a comment

I’ve been carrying a smaller sketchbook with me along with my regular one so that I can draw quick people sketches when I’m sat about, often in that purple brush pen that I got in Chicago, sometimes in pencil as you’ll see with another post from my friend’s stag party. Usually they’re people in the bar or in the street, sometimes people I will be chatting to and learning their stories, like the guy above with the beard who I sketched at the Ship while waiting for my friend to arrive, he was from Australia. I like to draw beards. You remember several years ago I wrote a book about people sketching called “Five Minute Sketching: People” (still available in most places, but I don’t get any royalties or anything) and I talked about how I don’t really like sketching people because I find it hard getting people just right, so I spend five minutes (or much less if possible) just to capture the essence of how I can see them, and move on (before they notice), just part of the general scene. I think these would have taken a minute, or maybe two.

While out, people would see I had a sketchbook and would ask if I would draw them, to which I obliged with the usual proviso that it probably wouldn’t be very accurate. You have some nice chats with people when out drawing, I find it’s always good to be friendly about it. One couple of lads were having a good night out and they asked me to sketch them, and were well pleased to have a quick sketch of their night. I do like to draw more relaxed natural poses, albeit with very generic people (and when people move about it’s often mix and match – this person’s head, someone else’s body, someone else’s pose). If you’re sat near people and want to sketch them it’s a nice thing to do to ask if they mind, though as other sketchers have said, you often get more natural poses when people don’t know, and it matters less when it turns out to look nothing like them, which is the usual case for me.

There was one other time though, I saw one guy wearing a big very sketchable bowler hat. I had noticed him staring at me even before I was drawing, but I whipped out a black pen and started drawing the outline of the hat. Immediately he came over and demanded to know if I was drawing him. “Well, your hat; is that ok?” He made it very clear that I had to ask consent if I was to draw him or take a photo of him (not that any photos were taken). “Oh ok; well, do you give me permission to draw you?” “No, I do not.” “Ok, that’s fair enough, I won’t draw you.” I must admit, I definitely wanted to draw this character now, this annoyed man in a bowler hat, but I always respect people’s wishes if they say they don’t want to be drawn, and scribbled over the hat sketch. Anyway, a little while after that I got back to my sketchbook to add in some more detail to a pencil sketch I had done earlier that evening, and I was writing some notes. I noticed bowler hat man still glaring at me, so I stared back for a few seconds. Immediately he was back. “You’re still drawing me!” he snapped. “No I’m not,” I reassured. “You are! Show me!” I smiled, and closed my book over. “Mate, I’m not drawing you, you need to take my word for it. However, I don’t give you permission to look at my private notebook.” This went down well. “What? I can’t believe you say that, after what we just talked about?” “That’s right!” I grinned. It seems he begrudgingly accepted that, and left me be. Look, I’m an open book, and I always show anyone who asks what I’m drawing, and if they are in the sketch and don’t want to be, I draw them out. I also reserve the right to close my book.

I quite like using the purple brush pen for quick sketches, it’s not as harsh as the black brush pen, though that goes well with colours (though it often smudges the opposite page). I did a lot more quick people sketching later in the trip though on my friend’s stag do, and for that I mostly used pencil, since I got a different small sketchbook (Fabriano Venezia) which is amazing with pencil. These were done in the small Stillman and Birn alpha, which is good with pencil but I preferred the brush pen in that book. I go through these phases of using purple pens.

man city v madrid at the mixer

July 15, 2023July 13, 2023Leave a comment

While in London I was doing a fair bit of remote work, which was usually done in the late afternoon and into the evening (and occasionally into the wee hours after midnight, since California time is eight hour behind London time). On one day I worked throughout the afternoon and had an early evening meeting which happened to finish around the same time as the Champions League semi-final was beginning. Back in California I might have (a) cycled home to watch it over some lunch, (b) sneekily put it on my iPad and watched in the meeting, or (c) not really cared that much since it’s not Tottenham playing. On this evening I fell more into the third category, since the meeting ran into the game time and I couldn’t bring it up on my mum’s TV anyway, but I had a feeling it might be an interesting game – Real Madrid vs Manchester City – so after the Zoom meeting ended I decided to go out and watch at least the second half at a pub if I could. I wasn’t sure where; I don’t know which pubs show football any more, and I didn’t really want to go to any pubs in Burnt Oak. I jumped on the tube, thought about Hendon, I remembered watching a football match in a big pub there (wait that was in 1996), considered Golders Green, again wasn’t sure, so I just headed to Camden. I knew the Earl of Camden showed football, so I headed there. Thing is, I don’t really like that pub much, it’s always a bit uncomfortable and packed. And it was too – nowhere to sit, screens in awkward places, there was a guy in a 1998 Real Madrid away shirt which was cool but other than that, I didn’t fancy it. The first half was just ending so I thought, look for somewhere else. I didn’t expect the Good Mixer would be showing it, but I passed by on my way to the High Street and sure enough, they had it on in there, and it wasn’t full of big football lads. I like the Mixer, it was always one of my favourite places to hang out in the 90s and early 2000s, me and Terry used to go an play pool there (well, he would play pool, I would lose once and then sit there watching him beat everyone for a couple of hours). I found a seat with a good view and watched City completely demolish Madrid in a “please make them stop!” sort of way. It was a bit like watching Terry play people at pool. (I remember one night, I think it was at the King’s Head in Crouch End, this cocky guy challenged him to a game of pool, the guy had a special expensive pool cue in a hard case, he got it out and was polishing it and chalking it, and gestured to Terry as a joke if he wanted to borrow his cue; Terry declined and picked up probably the shittest pub cue from the rack, and proceeded to wipe the floor with him, the guy didn’t pot a single ball. He then beat him a few more times in clinical fashion, I just remember the guy standing there furiously chalking his cue waiting for a go.) Real Madrid were taken apart, although in this case City have the most expensive cues and the hard cases. I sketched the pub in my little Stillman and Birn Alpha mini book, just a quick one in Pigma Graphic pen and what waetrcolours I brought with me (a small set of about five colours in a tiny stormtrooper-helmet tin, fits into my pocket easily). It’s one of my favourite bar sketches though, it captures the mood well. The game ended, some people celebrated (it’s an English team getting to a major European final, albeit one funded by a rich nation state), I remembered my old friend Rob who supported Man City back in the 90s when they were pretty crap (though they had amazing Kappa kits), and how this is for those fans who put up with all that back then. I went to the little chip shop next to the tube station where I’d always get my chips on the way home, and headed back to bed.

the railway tavern

July 14, 2023July 13, 20232 Comments

Here is another sketch from my home area of north London. This is the Railway Tavern, which is up Hale Lane, which is in Edgware, or is it Mill Hill, or can we even say Burnt Oak? It’s kind of all three, and none of them. We used to call this area ‘Green Man’, people probably still do, because of the large old pub on the corner of Hale Lane and Dean’s Lane, which was the Green Man. On maps I think this area gets called ‘Hale’ or ‘The Hale’ though people rarely say that out loud (the name goes back to the 13th century). I think of it as Edgware, really. It’s near enough to the main part of Edgware, and technically Burnt Oak is Edgware too, though we all know different. My address growing up was ‘Burnt Oak, Edgware, Middlesex’, yet we were in London (Greater London, the big urbanized county, Zone 4 on the Underground) because Middlesex no longer actually existed. Our postcodes for Edgware and Burnt Oak are holdovers from the pre-Greater London era, being HA8 (confusingly the HA is for Harrow, we are in the Borough of Barnet), while nearby Colindale and the more countrified Mill Hill got London postcodes (NW9 and NW7 respectively). Never try to make sense of London postcodes by the way. You get ‘NW’ (north-west, easy), N (north), W (west), E (east) SW (south-west), SE (south-east), BUT no ‘S’ for South, and no ‘NE’ for north-east. You do get EC and WC for the cities of London and Westminster but don’t think they all correspond exactly. I remember the jingle from the old 1980s adverts, “Pass On Your Postcode, You’re Not Properly Addressed Without It!” Then there was the phone code – 01 for London, that’s what made sense, we were all in that. Then they decided no wait, let’s change that up a bit, you people on the inside can be 071, you lot around the edges can be 081. Then they phoned back a few years ago, wait wait, I’m not done yet, make that 0171 and 0181, yes that makes more sense. Then they phone back a few years later, wait wait wait, let’s make that 0207 and 0208, ok we are definitely done now. Then they said no wait, we have some more changes to make. By then everyone was like, sorry, they have invented mobile phones now, we don’t care. London eh. But this is the Railway Tavern, and where exactly is it? Well the postcode says NW7, so it’s officially in Mill Hill, that settles it. Their website however says they are in ‘the heart of Edgware town’ which is quite interesting. ‘Up Hale Lane’, that’s all that matters. Besides, there was another tavern called The Railway in Edgware near the station, which closed many years ago (the historic building is still there, being allowed to fall to pieces; I drew it eight years ago: https://petescully.com/2016/01/14/the-end-of-the-railway/). This pub however is still open, which is good to see. I actually have never been in here as an adult, but came in several times as a kid with my family. It was a good pub to bring the kids to, because there was a good garden out the back which had swings, and there were always other local kids to play with. I remember kicking one of those plastic footballs around here when I was about 11, and it kept going into a neighbouring garden, while parents drank in the pub inside. Those days always remind me of the taste of Coca-Cola in a glass bottle, not very cold, and salt and vinegar crisps. I thought about coming up to this pub in the evening while I was back to draw the inside, but didn’t get around to it. I have wanted to draw the outside for years though, I really like the shape of this building. I love a triangle.

Why is it called The Railway Tavern though? There is no rail line nearby (the closest being way down at Mill Hill Broadway), and it’s not by a tube station, which is a good mile away down at Edgware. Well, actually there used to be a rail line near here, passing through Dean’s Lane down the hill, going between Edgware and Mill Hill East. When we were kids it was long closed down, and the area was known as the Old Bomb, I presumed it had been bombed in the war and never rebuilt. In fact they did originally plan to have a line that ran between Mill Hill East, passing through this way and not only up to Edgware but well beyond, but it was never built. Ever wondered why there’s that bit of the Northern Line that squiggles out to Mill Hill East for some reason? Jay Foreman’s excellent Unfinished London video explains this whole thing much better than I can: https://youtu.be/jjuD288JlCs. The pub does apparently date back to the 1890s, but I think the building is later than that. This page on the London Borough of Barnet website gives a little history of the are called The Hale, and it mentions the ‘Railway Inn’. Next time I’m back, I should pop in for a pint.

Monumental

July 13, 2023July 13, 20233 Comments

I went up The Monument. “The Monument? Which Monument? I hear you ask. Aha, The Monument. That’s all Londoners call it, and it has its own tube station called simply ‘Monument’ so that’s that (it joins up with the station called ‘Bank’ which is named after The Bank of England which we never call “The Bank”). I could write a whole book on tube station names, but it’s probably been done, I would only be using it as an excuse to draw pictures. Anyway, the full name of The Monument is actually The Monument To the Great Fire of London, and yes, it is exactly that. And I went up it, for the first time since I was in my teens. I’ve not had much of a reason to go back up there in all these years, and I do muddle up my old your guide stories about it occasionally (no it is not 365 feet high and no it does not grow a foot in leap years, that is St.Paul’s as everyone knows). It was created by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke as a huge column topped with a shiny golden ball of flames and an observation deck, so people can climb up the narrow spiral stair case (all 311 steps) and look out over the rebuilt city that Wren had created. Well I wanted to go up there and draw. The City keeps on changing, and since the last time I saw that view from that angle was in the early 1990s, it was bound to have changed a bit. The first time I went up I was about 15 or 16, and I remember getting to the top, and finding myself still looking up at buildings, while also being at the top of a very narrow stone column with just some bars stopping me from plummeting. They do say that if The Monument ever fell on its side (presumably at the exactly correct angle) it would hit the spot where the Great Fire began, in Pudding Lane. Since it had never happened, there was no chance of it toppling over, but as I reached the very tight confines of the top, my knees went all “Ossie Ardiles 1981”, and I nearly bottled it. I forced myself to the top platform, and hugged the wall with my back, edging slowly around. There was a German couple up there taking loads of photos oblivious to the height, and I thought, well Pete you better get to work on this sketch. So I whipped out my Fabriano sketchbook and my HB pencil and drew the view as well as I could. The idea was that I’d add in the pen up there, and maybe colour it in later.

Another man joined us on the platform and he like me was just edging around the column slowly in a state of terror. “Me too, mate” I said reassuringly. Despite the very sturdy looking barriers, I was convinced that I would drop my pen, and it would plummet down to the streets below, probably taking out someone’s eye and impaling them in the neck, and I would have to get a different pen. So as far as I got with the penwork was drawing Tower Bridge and a couple of other details. It started getting windy, and hello, that was it for me mate. I said Auf Wiedersehen to my brave German friends still taking photos (actually they had left long before so I was basically saying goodbye in German to a pair of American tourists) and went back down that long spiral staircase, hoping that nobody passed me coming back up.

When I reached the bottom, to my surprise they gave me a certificate that certified that I had climbed all 311 steps of The Monument. That was nice. I then went to buy some new pants. Only joking. It did remind me though of that first time I climbed up here (no certificate in those days, at least not for me) and I said something about Wren being “a nutter” to the attendant, who grumbled a possible agreement, and I had this idea about doing a project where I drew and wrote about all of Wren’s buildings in the city, and it was not until the 2010s that I did something along those lines, when I organized two big Wren-themed sketchcrawls, the first one in 2014 starting at The Monument and ending at St.Paul’s, and the second one in 2016 doing the reverse, culminating in a big group photo outside The Monument after we as a group had drawn every single Wren building in the City, all in one day, an achievement so big I’ve never got around to organizing another London sketchcrawl. Read about that sketchcrawl here. I’m still into Wren though, and I’m glad I went up The Monument. I decided to finish the inking of that drawing over the top of the pencil sketch, using what photos I dared to take as reference, and that’s the complicated panorama sketch at the top of the post. I’m very pleased with that one, click on it for a closer view.

blue t-rex

July 12, 2023July 11, 2023Leave a comment

As Lapin once said to me, every sketchbook needs an old car and a dinosaur. Well, in that Fabriano sketchbook I had the old car, but I wasn’t sure if I would get a dinosaur in there (I did go to South Kensington at the end of the book, spoiler alert, but I drew in the V&A rather than the NHM, so no dinosaurs but I did draw a suit of armour). However, I have these Lego dinosaurs skeletons, so I thought I’d draw the T-Rex. I was messing about with the sketchbook and wanted to lay down some gouache, and draw over it with white gel pen to see the effect. Yea, it looks nice enough. It was not as easy to draw as I thought, the pen needed a bit of work, I was scratching away at it. It might have looked nice in white acrylic paint with a very thin brush, but it would also have taken me ages, and I was just trying something out. Upshot, I probably won’t be using this technique for any on-location sketches. But I have a dinosaur in that book now.