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.

snow is falling, all around us…

January 7, 2011Leave a comment

This is Norwich Walk, the street where I grew up. On this very block in fact; my old bedroom window is on the third house from the right. I’ve never seen so much snow in London, as fell on my recent trip. It was on the Saturday morning a week before Christmas, and despite a little fall of snow the day before, we decided to take the short trip to Colindale to visit the RAF Museum. I wanted to draw old planes. In Burnt Oak, carol singers stood outside the station singing Christmas songs as snow fluttered down like a picturesque postcard (without the picturesque of course; it was Burnt Oak tube station, not one of London’s nicer spots). Then our bus stopped due to ice on the road, and we got out and walked across the estate. As we did, an absolutely massive amount of snow pounded down upon us. We were walking snowmen by the time we finally snowy pillar box reached the musuem, which had just decided (wisely) to close. The buses then stopped, as did the tube, and cars were quickly becoming buried beneath feet of snow. Thankfully my dad managed to dig his car out and came to rescue us, though the roads were treacherous, and we had to crawl along. Snow was coming down in ice cubes. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see those little paper umbrellas too. We got home, and warmed up, and then I went straight back outside with my little sketching stool to fill the last page of moleskine sketchbook #6 and freeze my fingers off. The snow had just stopped falling, and I had to capture this before it all vanished (little did I know it wouldn’t vanish for another week and a half).

Passing locals must have thought I was a nutter (those that have known me all my life knew it for a fact…). I quickly sketched the pillar box I’d drawn two days before, and then drew the street panorama. I gave up halfway through, my fingers freezing off, but then decided to soldier on, finish the block, and I’m glad I did. My micron pen didn’t give up so neither would I. Thankfully snow isn’t hard to draw. I added the paint when I got home.

So this is the last page of this sketchbook, which was started on a very hot day in southern Oregon on the fourth of July, and finished in freezing cold London in December. I did a good bit of travelling in this book, and you can see the whole journey on my flickr site: Moleskine #6

here be dragons

January 6, 2011January 6, 20112 Comments

The City of London – the square mile, the original city founded by the Romans as Londinium Augusta and re-established a few centuries later by Alfred the Great’s Saxons, the separate city governed by the Lord Mayor and the Corporation of London with its own police force, local laws and customs, and pubs which never open at weekends – is a realm guarded by magical beings. Of course it is. The silver heraldic dragons (often erroneously called – as I did above – ‘griffins’, because as you know silver hybrids save you money on the congestion charge) which stand at the major entrances to the City serve to remind us of this ancient boundary. The Queen for example cannot cross this boundary without invitation from the Lord Mayor. Pretty annoying for her when she has to take the tube from Westminster to Tower Hill. “Oh bugger, one has forgawten to bring one’s invitation with one, one will have to get orf the tube at Temple and walk along the South Bank instead.” Sorry guv, it’s the rules, yer majesty.

The dragon holds the shield of the City, which is the cross of St. George (which I’m sure would offend dragons these days) and a little red dagger, which is widely believed to represent the dagger that was used to stab Wat Tyler at Smithfield, ending the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, but may just as well represent the sword of St.Paul, patron saint of London. Or it could represent the London media’s obsession with knife crime.

I sketched this after a nice afternoon with the family in London, when I was on my way to see the house of Dr. Johnson. A nice festive dusting of snow had just fallen, and everything looked pleasant. Next day a massive blizzard came.

from pillar to post

January 3, 20112 Comments

And so onto my sketches from London. Not having any fire hydrants, it was obvious I would have to sketch soemthing even better – the post box (or pillar box) at the corner of the street where I grew up. I got up early (as jetlagged travellers do) and sketched it as Burnt Oak locals passed thinking, ‘nutter’. This dates from the reign of King George V (hence the GR cypher on the front) and is of the standard pillar box design. I drew this more than once – the second time it was covered in snow…

oh, the weather outside is frightful

December 22, 20105 Comments

So… as you may have gathered from my non-posts this past week, I am away from rain-sodden California to lovely London, where I’ve had a week without any rain whatsoever.

Oh, but we’ve been having the worst snowy winter weather I’ve ever seen here. Many days after a sudden blizzard, the snow is still here there and everywhere, tough it hasn’t stopped me from getting out there with sketchbook. Yes, fingers freezing off and pens giving up the ghost doesn’t get in the way of this urban sketcher. Not two months ago I was sketching in hundred degree weather heat. Thing is, I grew up with snow lasting only a day or two before sodding off, and always tell people about our comparatively mild winters, but now it seems the snow comes earlier and stays longer, and the disruption is magnified. Naturally, Britain fails to cope, as the absolute madness of Heathrow attests. I’m glad I came a few days earlier than I would have. I just hope we can get back…

These are a couple of photos of what I have been out sketching though; the top one being the street where I grew up, about an hour after the biggest blizzzard I can remember here. I’m sure people thought I was a nutter sitting out there freezing, well they’re right, but urban sketchers are tough beasts. My fingers took a battering in the second one too, sat down by the River Thames, looking out at HMS Belfast and Tower Bridge. My toes were frozen too. I warmed up with a nice chicken and mushroom pie. That’s one thing Britain can always get right!

But boy, is it cold…

going for gold

March 21, 2010March 21, 20107 Comments

This is Goldbeaters School in Burnt Oak, where I went to school from the nursery until the age of 11. When I left the Berlin Wall was still up, Thatcher still had some years to go as PM, and Glenn Hoddle had just left Spurs for Monaco. This was drawn from a photo I took on a previous trip back home; I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. I was up early yesterday morning and needed to do a drawing. I decided to make it sepia; in a way this is how I remember it. Apart from the grass and a bit of graffiti I left out, everything else is actually the right colour, pretty much.

I was inspired to finally draw my old junior school when an old, good friend from Goldbeaters got in touch with me via Facebook, Lee Glenn. I’ve not seen him since back then, so it was a real pleasure to hear from him. Reminded me of all the fun old times we had when we were kids, playing A-Team and, er, Hammer House of Horror in the playground. I will need to dig out my old school photos on my next trip back home. He blogs too – at leeglenn.net, and he made a very nice mention of me over there – and also runs a forum about film, music, books etc called ‘the popcorn patch’. Check it out!

I have good memories of Goldbeaters. I always remember most fondly my friends from the juniors, in the days when swapping Panini football stickers was pretty much the most important thing in the world. That was like a little microcosm economy of its own, the football sticker swapping market. Couldn’t have too many Spurs badges or Maradona stickers on the market otherwise the whole thing would collapse, and every so often there’d be a bust when some silly sod would knock someone’s wad of Football 86 into the air and shout “SCRAMBLE!”, showering the playground with doubles and triples of Ian Rush and rare Hamilton Academical team stickers alike. I have always imagined that that, essentially, was what the real Stock Market is really like.

walk this way

December 23, 2009March 9, 20103 Comments

The last of my sketches from the trip back home to London. Burnt Oak, Middlesex, to be precise. Well Middlesex doesn’t really exist any more except in post codes, it’s part of Greater London these days – it has been wiped off the map (in the non-Ahmedinedjad sense, or maybe that is what he meant?). Anyway, this was the view out my bedroom window all through growing up, the orange-bricked houses and narrow tarmac pavements of the typical working class council estate. Those trees in the distance, that is Watling Park. Now I am in the distance again, back in California, far away from all the snow and chaos, and I haven’t done much drawing yet. But tonight, for the first time ever, I will attempt to make mince pies. Merry Christmas!

angels on silver strings hang from above

December 21, 2009Leave a comment

After spending some time among the wild stones of Highgate Cemetery, I strolled through the park and back up to the village and sat in the middle of a traffic island, sketching the Angel Inn. Yup, another pub drawn. It’s a nice, warm pub with a good atmosphere and nice beers. I didn’t have the time (or energy) to draw the inside – some other occasion maybe. I would sometimes pop in here when I lived on Hornsey Lane, just down the hill. When I came out of the Angel Inn, the Sun had long since flown and the pretty garlands were zigzagging down Highgate Hill.

I hear there is a lot of snow in London these days. Have they learned to grit the roads on time yet? I remember back in, ooh, ’04 I think it was, the second annual Arctic Blast that caught us all by surprise (by giving us three days’ notice), and how my boss gave me a lift back from Finchley to Crouch End, bypassing the strangled traffic on the main iced-up roads by cleverly taking the back streets, but then having to navigate through stranded cars and sliding buses down Highgate Hill. It was like something from the Winter Olympics, but in extreme slow motion. Pretty scary. Highgate is a very steep hill.

frame thy fearful cemetery

December 21, 2009July 15, 20244 Comments

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images
(T.S Elliot, ‘The Waste Land’)

I love Highgate Cemetery. They used to say there were vampires here, many years ago, but surely they would all have book deals by now. I haven’t been into the famous boneyard in a long time but really wanted to come and catch some sketches here. Or one at least, while the sunlight was still good. I didn’t bother with the main paved routes but dove straight into the thick overgrown muddy paths, where not a single grave is standing straight, and ivy covers the moss-green stone tombstones of someone possibly famous who you’ve never heard of. Everyone is here to see Marx, of course, the tourists from China who all had to study his works at college, snapping a photo next to the bearded tomb; I tried to sketch it but it looked like Santa. I took photos of the cemetery myself – who couldn’t? – and one of them is below. As for sketching, I enjoyed hiding among the dead and drawing the above. I was out of the way. There was one other person I think who appeared from time to time, stealing photos between the stones, but otherwise all I could hear were the crows. I was eager to include the entrance ticket (four quid to get in, by the way) on the page but forgot to account for the red writing contrasting with the greens and greys. It didn’t stop me.