just a northern song

March 16, 20119 Comments

While back in London in December, I spent about six million pounds just on travelling on the tube. Or at least, it felt like it. The Oyster Card was well used. Lots of urban sketchers sketch on their urban transport systems, so I of course had to do some as well. Being a Londoner of course and therefore absolutely terrified at the thought of interaction with any other person, I usually sketched when the tube was near empty. I am from the Northern Line, Edgware Branch, that was my highway. Years ago, before the trains very nicely started telling me where I was, I could tell I was getting closer to home because of the way the stations were painted – Hendon Central was sky blue, Colindale was yellow – ah, red! Burnt Oak. Time to get off and get some fried chicken. They’re all painted the same now, though the signs help.

Trains still stop inexplicably outside Golders Green for like, ten minutes though. “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of the tube stopping for no reason whatsoever outside Golders Green for ages,” as Johnson once said.

Someone enjoyed watching those dot matrix displays on the underground train (above). I remember when they brought those in, that was nice, and nowadays they even work! He got to know the voice that announces the stations very well (“this station is Belsize Park. This train terminates at Morden, via Bank“). Best of all though was the ‘Mind the Gap’ announcement, which in many places is a nice gentle FYI, but in others it is still the one I remember as a kid, the booming, authoritative ‘MIND THE GAP’, which I always imagined was the voice of the Supreme Being. Yes, the one from Time Bandits.

I do miss the Tube sometimes. Even after so many years and years of it annoying the hell out of me, even though certain ticket office staff seem to deliberately make an effort to be unhelpful, even though it’s overcrowded and unreliable and ridiculously expensive…um, sorry I forgot what I was talking about.

who ate all the pies?

March 2, 2011March 3, 20114 Comments

Even though I was utterly frozen on this pre-Christmas Thames-side sketching day, I had promised my son I’d draw him the bridge that goes up and down, and goddammit I was gonna draw it. Tower Bridge, as all Americans know, was built so that their taxis from Heathrow Airport could cross the river on the way to their hotels in South Kensington. On this day, there was lots of snow everywhere (it wasn’t that I didn’t fancy colouring in the grass, it really was that white). My poor micron pen by that point was ready to retire for the day, and was not cooperating in the chilly air.

The best way to warm up after a load of winter urban sketching is to go into a pub that does big hot chicken and mushroom pies. Oh yeah! And a nice beer from Yorkshire, a ‘Cropton Yorkshire Warrior’. The beer wasn’t warm, by the way. I’m always asked whether I like warm beer, being a Brit, but it’s a misconception. Lots of our beers and ales are indeed best served at room temperature, but people forget, it’s bloody cold in Britain, and we can’t afford heating any more, our rooms are freezing. The pie however was burn-yer-gob-off hot, and so British you could almost hear it humming Land of Hope and Glory.

the pool of london

February 25, 20118 Comments

This is almost it for London sketches, I promise you. But not quite yet. These were sketched down at the Pool of London – that stretch of the Thames after London Bridge, the true ancient heart of London the river city. It was an absolutely freezing cold day, bitter and icy, with snow still blasted to surfaces even here in central London, days after the massive blizzard. The scene above is of HMS Belfast, the battleship-turned-tourist spot permanently moored in the Pool of London, with the ancient Tower of London to the left and the less ancient Tower Bridge to the right. The Tower of London was built by William the Conqueror in the late eleventh century as a symbol of the Normans’ military control of the capital, while Tower Bridge was built at the end of the nineteenth century because people needed to get from one side of the Thames to the other.

I found this great spot to sketch all three, on a little covered outcrop overlooking the Thames, with benches and shelter from the wind. I sat down to sketch, got my moleskine and pens out, started to sketch and then within three minutes a couple of men from India came up and asked me not to sit there. They would be filming there, and needed me to move. I saw that there were some other people there with them, and one had a camera (not a film or TV camera, but just a fancy hand-held). “How long will you be?” I asked. I didn’t want to lose my opportunity to sketch this scene. They both answered at the same time, one said “ten minutes”, one said “half an hour to an hour”.

“Which is it?” I replied. “Half an hour at least,” they said. I told them I wanted to sketch here, it’s a public place.

“You can come back another time, the ship’s not going anywhere,” one said back to me.

“But I am,” I said. “Do you have a permit to film here?”

I know that you need a permit if you’re out filming and require the public to not go into public places. Again they both answered at the same time: one said “yes, the other said “no”. I asked to see it. No response. I knew they didn’t have one.

“Look,” I conceded, “I’ll give you fifteen minutes, and then I’m coming back and I will sketch here.” Thankfully they agreed; it was either that or call a policeman to sort out who has what rights to be where. I went off and did a quick ten-minute sketch of the Gherkin (see right), then went and warmed my hands up in a bookstore, before resuming my spot to sketch HMS Belfast. They were filming some romantic kissing scene, but they didn’t object when I came back for my turn. While I sketched, several people came along and stood in the way to take photos and look at the view, and I didn’t mind because they had every right to. It is an amazing view.

And this I sketched shortly before then, at London Bridge. This looks towards the heart of the City of London – you can see Tower 42 and the golden-topped column of the Monument there. That column, built by Christopher Wren to commemorate the Great Fire of 1666, would, if it fell over, reach the exact spot in Pudding Lane where the fire began. Presumably Wren kept that fact to himself, lest gangs of curious seventeenth-century scallywags attempt to push it over to find out. There has been a bridge on this spot called London Bridge since the time of the Romans, and yes, previous incarnations did sometimes fall down (or burn down, usually). This particular London Bridge dates back to the 1970s, when the previous one (which was not falling down, but sinking) was sold to a man in Arizona who needed it to sell postcards.

I however was utterly freezing. After these sketches I went and had a nice hot chicken pie.

and don’t dilly-dally on the way

February 17, 2011February 16, 20113 Comments

Londonistas, fear not. I still haven’t finished posting all of my London sketches from December. There are still more to come. I’ve been spreading them out over a period of a couple of months to keep you coming back. Or rather, because I’ve just not gotten around to scanning and cropping and blah blah. Still, it mixes it up a bit – San Francisco here, Islington there, Sacramento here, little bit of Davis. This is Piccadilly, in central London. It’s a thoroughfare named after those ruff collars that people used to wear years ago (think Shakespeare, Raleigh, Blackadder…) and full of fine shops and elegances. St. James’s church (above left) is a great old Wren church, free of stained glass (as was the fashion in Protestant England) and a building I’ve wanted to sketch for quite a while. Light was fading though (the sun goes down at about midday in England in December) so I had to be quick. A few people asked if I sold my sketches while I was sat there. One even asked me in Italian. Another said he’d give me a fiver for it. Sorry, I said, this is part of my sketchbook and I don’t cut out pages. A tenner then, he said. Hmmm, five hundred quid, I said. Bargaining ended there, and I got back to sketching.

I sketched a post box on St. James Street. It has two slots for letters, which is handy if you’re in a hurry. It reminded me of that line in Little Britain, “if you put a second class stamp on a letter in Britain, it’s guaranteed to arrive somewhere at some point in the future, maybe.” Ah, Britain. When I used to be a tourguide I would tell my American tourists that the “ER” meant ‘Emergency Room’. I also used to tell people that, where an ‘L’ plate on a car means ‘Learner’, the ‘GB’ sticker means ‘Getting Better’.

I also used to tell them that Piccadilly Circus was the Times Square of London (which is what we’re supposed to say), and that the statue of ‘Eros’ isn’t Eros at all. It’s called the Angel of Christian Charity, and was erected for the Earl of Shaftesbury. It is supposed to point up Shaftesbury Avenue, but now i fact points the other way, due to a mistake when re-erecting it. Now it’s used as the emblem of that paragon of virtue and unbiased truth, the Evening “we can’t even justify being paid for so now we’re free” Standard. It was, as always, very busy. McDonalds was jam packed; it was like Piccadilly Circus.

And there on the right, the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the Theatreland of Soho. I remember when this used to be the Globe Theatre, but it got changed and now we have a different theatre called the Globe (something to do with that Shakespeare guy again, they’re still going on about him). As I sketched, a group of small oiks gathered around me to watch. I sped up and moved to a different spot. I don’t trust small oiks, out in feral packs on the streets of London. I do like it round here though; a mate of mine lived about a block north of this spot years ago, up in Berwick Street, and those were great times. I can even remember some of them.

sketching islington

February 8, 2011February 8, 20116 Comments

London, December 2010. The rain had come like an old friend and washed away the snow; no more dreaming of White Christmases after this one, more like dreading. I took a ‘sketching day’ and got on the tube to Islington. I like Islington a lot, and would happily live there and vote New Labour and read the Guardian and go to the theatre and all the other things Islington people do (except support Arsenal of course). We lived for a few years not far away on the edge of the borough at Hornsey Lane (I love steep hills! so now I live in Davis). This is Camden Passage, an interesting little street just off Upper Street (not in Camden at all), full of charming antique stores and little cafes (trendy or otherwise). I sketched it while listening to people speak French (and German occasionally) all around me, which was nice.

I was on my way to Cass Arts’ flagship store (it’s very big, but has exactly the same products as the smaller store in Soho, just more of them) and I whipped my sketchbook out to draw some of the interesting things being laid out in the street in front of one such antique store (‘Decorext’ I believe it was called). They had a pair of these interesting Union Jack chairs, and I had to draw one of them, being the foreign tourist that I am. This would make a fine seat for anyone watching the Royal Wedding this April. Pass the Battenburg.

One of the other buildings I really couldn’t resist sketching was the Screen on the Green cinema. I’ve only been in there once (I think I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 there) but it’s historic and Islington. For some reason I chose to use my coloured micron pens for the neon signs. Drawing old movie theatres is fun. After this, I jumped onto a double-decker bus and went to Piccadilly.

some things change, some things stay the same

February 7, 2011February 7, 201124 Comments

This is Vipins, a stationery and card shop in Burnt Oak, north London. It has been there all my life, and I swear it hasn’t changed a bit. they even have the same stock as when I was a kid. I used to go in there all the time for pens, notepads, card, glitter, pritt stick, rulers, cartridge pens and so on. I still pop in there whenever I’m back, and sometimes find unexpected goodies. This time I found a mini clipboard, which has the clip along the side rather than the top, and fits into my bag. It’s perfect sketchbook size, handy for when I’m trying to hold onto my often awkward watercolour moleskine. I guess it’s used for Bingo. Anyway I decided to try it out straight away (it was Christmas Eve, still snowy, I had just got my hair cut at Syd’s barbers behind Woolworths – er, behind where Woolworths used to be, I mean), and so I stood outside Vipins in the cold and sketched for fifteen minutes, standing up. The clipboard was brilliant. It really helped whne standing to sketch, and being small it was still discreet. I popped back in to show Mr and Mrs Vipin, they were pleased with the sketch. This is a very typical Burnt Oak scene I’ve known my entire life, and I need to sketch these whenever I’m back, because the area keeps changing so much.

Incidentally, today’s my birthday. I share it with Charles Dickens (I always hated our joint birthday parties). I sketched San Francisco yesterday as a birthday present to myself (though I forgot my little clipboard). I’ll show you at some point.

shard times

February 3, 2011February 3, 2011Leave a comment

This is the Shard, a brand new skyscraper under construction in London, near London Bridge. It’s called the Shard because the architect is a big fan of The Dark Crystal. It will be the tallest building in Britain when completed, and London’s skyline will be changed forever (or, until the next tall unusual building is finished, and there are more on the way in). Eventually it will look like a huge glass spike pointing at the clouds. I sketched it stood near London Bridge station after a morning out by the river with family, really cold but not as freezing as before. I had to draw quickly because I was off to meet my friend up near Tottenham Court Road station (and I was about to discover just how different London looks now, and how much of central London is like a building site – much of Oxford Street appears to be gone! But there is a Chipotle on Charing Cross Road, which made me happy). I like to draw in-progress sketches of buildings, because once they are finished and iconic it’s fun to remember how they looked going up.

oh i wish it could be boxing day every day

February 1, 2011February 2, 20112 Comments

With this very busy January, I’d almost forgotten I still have loads of sketches from London yet to scan and post! So to warm your winter cockles (what is a cockle? is it a muscle?)* here is a sketch I did on Boxing Day at my mum’s house in Burnt Oak, north London. Boxing Day (for those who are unaware) is the day after Christmas. On the TV there is Alec Guinness playing Fagin in Oliver Twist. That’s a great version, that, and the guy who played Bill Sykes was truly villainous. Plus it has the dog from the Target adverts in it. Alec Guinness as you know went on to train Luke Skywalker in the art of picking a pocket or two.

*before you correct me, I do know what a cockle is. It’s a type of male chicken.

for there is in london all that life can afford

January 20, 2011January 20, 20115 Comments

While back in London I was fortunate enough to sketch at the house of Dr. Samuel Johnson, in Gough Square (off Fleet Street). The doctor himself wasn’t home, having died a couple of centuries ago or so, but the very nice curator Stephanie gave me a cup of tea and a tour of the house. I love this area and all its history and Johnson’s House is a jewel. He was the archetypal Londoner (well, he was from Staffordshire) from whom we get many famous quiz-night quotations, his most well-known being that one about being tired of London (let’s not forget he said it before the invention of the Northern Line). Beyond his famous dictionary and his appearance in Blackadder as Robbie Coltrane, many people don’t actually know much about him. I certainly learned a lot more about Johnson, and he was a very interesting man, and quite ahead of his time. I enjoyed being brought back into the eighteenth century learning the stories behind regular household objects. For example, his very thin chair (sketched above) – Dr Johnson was a pretty portly man, but apparently he would sit on it backwards and lean his arms on the back while watching cock fights down at his local pub (as you did).

i sketched this - johnson's cat hodges with the house in the background - a couple of years ago

That’s the dictionary up there on the left, first edition print. Not the original manuscript, but still pretty cool to be in the vicinity of this famous (if Scot-mocking) book, so I had to sketch that too.

If you happen to be in London, head down to the Fleet Street area, and visit Dr Johnson’s House in Gough Square. You’ll really like it. and then, go and explore the narrow lanes and old pubs of the area. As Johnson himself said, “Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts.” And he was right an’ all.

Website of Dr. Johnson’s House

beneath whose chilly softness

January 11, 2011January 11, 20111 Comment

As soon as I had finished sketching in the snow to close out Moleskine #6, I went inside and opened Moleskine #7, got myself a cup of tea and some Quality Street, stood by an extra warm radiator and looked out of the window. I sketched the other side of the street where I grew up, from my old bedroom window. After freezing my fingers off outside, this was an excellent way to spend the rest of the afternoon, while my son napped.