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…

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.

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.