A sketching morning in Hampstead, with Si, starting at the tube station, wandering about the high Street and its alleys, then off to the Flask for a good pint of Deuchars. And it didn’t even rain!
Tag: watercolour
it’s so grey in london town
Sketched on a quiet corner of craven street, behind busy whitehall, the house where herman melville lived 150 years or so ago for like five minutes probably (had a whale of a time). It started raining while drawing this, so I ducked into a doorway, and then hightailed it to a nearby old pub, the ship and shovell, where I finished off the wash, washed down with some cold bavarian hofbrauhaus beer, served by a brazilian.
But this says London, doesn’t it. I think so.
(sketched may 29, micron pen)
fast to westminstar-ward i went
I regret not sketching as much as I now do when I lived in London, for there is so much history and life to draw. I’ve drawn these railings before (with a burnt bike), and I thought I should start my sketching here. I met Simon and we proceeded on a sketchcrawl through a surprisingly sunny London. We walked through the narrow streets of St Giles and Covent Garden, as the city I’d not seen in a year came flooding back. After drawing the pic below (a whisky shop in covent garden; i was trying out a new brown micron pigma, i need to work on that effetc though), we stopped off for a Belgian beer (I had Maredsous) and some frites at the Bierodrome in Kingsway.
And then, through my old haunts of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Chancery Lane (to see the spectacular Maughan Library), and Fleet Street, before crossing Ludgate (pointing out the face of King Lud) and reaching St. Paul’s (and doing the sketch on the right, previously posted). More to come!
þe mayster-toun hit evermore has bene
I’m back in London, for the first time in a year.
After such Davis heat, I am happy to say that the rain I had wished for has come in abundance, though I got out to sketch on Saturday with my old long-missed sketching (and lightsabering) buddy in some great sunshine, drawing from St.Giles to St.Paul’s. I stocked up on pens before coming and have really not had many chances to wear them out yet; but I have been eating hob-nobs, drinking millions of tea, looking at old photos, spending time with family, catching up with friends over many a cider in Camden, gettig frustrated with the sheer amount of people gong here and there in this mad mad place. How did I ever survive here for so long? But I did, and this is still my town. The town I know so well. More to say have I, but not the energy just yet.
By the way, ten points (or an MA in my case) to they who can guess the reference in the title.
on the last bus out of town
Appropriately as I am red-bus and red-brick city bound, an old routemaster which has travelled wide and ended up in Davis. (Hence my illustration friday for this week, theme “wide”). I sketched & painted this (and it was a proper sketch, not a drawing, as i was sat waiting for my own bus) in just over 15 minutes before another bus and some people got in the way. I had better get used to that where I’m going. this is a little bit of London in California. I can relate to that.
If Mayor Boris Standard-endorsed Johnson really does get rid of bendy-buses (at a cost of millions which could go into, say, crossrail) perhaps they too will end up in Davis.
“Knock Knock”
“Who’s there?”
“Wide”
“Wide who?”
“Wide don’t you open the door and find out?”
(kids! don’t open the door to strangers! especially if they tell bad knock-knock jokes!)
come on, turn up the sun
When it gets hot in Davis, it gets very very hot. It hit over a hundred degrees today, and we haven’t had rain since oh before you were born. I am not looking forward to July; that’s when the Central Valley simply redefines hot. It is not a fun place to be.
And so I went out in it to draw. There was a breeze, albeit a hot breeze. I had promised myself it would be a drawing day, and so lunchtime I went to the arboretum, found a shady spot, and drew the greenhouse. I’m sure I want to say somehing about the greenhouse effect, but I won’t, I’m too hot.
In other news: I was sad to hear that Celtic legend Tommy Burns had died aged only 51. Gordon Strachan’s tribute was sad too. This a day after their rivals Rangers lost in the UEFA Cup Final. Not a happy time for Scottish football.
tummy time
I’m still practising drawing Baby, and here is young Luke – at 14 weeks old – practising tummy time. He’s pretty good at it – see how well he hold his head up now! – and rolled over for the first time on Saturday. Well done little dude! He’s cooing and babbling a lot now, he has strange conversations with the ceiling fan. He is just so interested in all of the world around him.
I’ve drawn the eyes a bit too big, and the head’s probably too long. I drew this in copic 0.05, with cotman watercolours, in the baby’s journal, drawn from a photo taken at the weekend. I normally draw Luke in pecil but have been trying to do pen, even though you cannot erase your mistakes when the eyes look too close together and stuff, and I quite like the effect in this one.
Here are some more pen sketches of Luke from his journal showing his difficult to capture baby expressions. I’ll keep practising!
stop dreaming of the quiet life
What a great week for british football, what a bad week for the labour party, what a terrible week for London. Now let’s see how many election promises boris can break (banning bendy buses? you are, as they say, avinalarf, intya). My own week started off badly; After a sad rescue attempt, I finally abandoned the bike, being unable to move the back wheel at all. I felt very sad, like I was shooting my horse or something. None of my tools could fix it (yes, I have the odd tool). Then a bird pooed on my new trousers and favourite shirt. I’ve also been off drawing, just haven’t been able to do it, partly just bored with the same trees at lunchtime, partly head interior all fuzzy. Hey, it’s May; funny how that happened so quickly.
This is the back of my building at work, lunchtime today, from a bench. I will draw in colour again, I promise.
london please! don’t vote for johnson
A famous Johnson once compared being tired of London to being tired of life.
For those Americans who may not have heard, it’s the London Mayoral Election, May 1st – though April 1st might have been more appropriate, because there is a good chance a complete bloody fool will get elected. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, aka ‘Boris’, aka that posh bloke with the mad blond hair who’s always on the telly making more gaffes than Beazer Homes, wants to leave his cosy safe Henley seat for City Hall, where he promises to improve public transport, and get rid of bendy buses (which despite making all those headlines in the anti-Ken Evening Standard, actually make London buses far more accessible than the old routemasters, and carry more people than regular double-deckers; they’ve also worked fine for years in many other big European cities). Boris Eton/Henley/Oxford Johnson, who I doubt has ever taken a bus except for a publicity shoot, in charge of public transport?
My fellow Londoners (though I am now absent), I implore you, do not give the mayoral job to Boris Upper Class Twit of the Year Johnson. If you want a cartoon buffoon with few social skills and a history of slagging off other cities for not being as upper class and Henley as him, if you want a right-wing mayor who has no interest in London, if you want Zippy out of Rainbow with Worzel Gummidge’s hair whose campaign rests on bloody bendy buses, vote for him by all means, but I think London deserves better. Whether you like Ken or not he has done a great job as our first mayor, from increasing the number of buses to the improvement of public spaces (Trafalgar Square is actually a place worth visiting now); having a clown like Johnson in office will make a mockery of what is still a very new post. Even if you don’t vote for Ken, please, for London’s sake, don’t vote for Johnson.
After all, when Johnson tires of London, he can just swan off back to Henley.
tombé en panne
Today was very hot in Davis; not good for allergies, not good if you hate bugs, not good for redheads like pete. After spending the morning playing guitar to the baby I decided to get out on the bike to draw. My bike, however, did not think so. After twenty minutes, on the bike path, it just died; the back wheel refused to spin. I wrestled with it in the heat for an hour, getting filthy, before taking it to a bike shop, where they apparently fixed it by turning a nut with a wrench. Ok, thanks, yes I tried that with my bare hands, that might have been the problem. I cleaned up, and finally got to draw something, choosing a particularly nondescript corner, in fairly nondescript sepia, because I was in a mood.
I then got on my bike to go home. And after ten minutes, the chain went, and then five minutes later the back wheel stopped again, stopped like a french worker in striking season (that’s about this time of year, usually). I had to abandon it, I had no phone with me, there were no payphones, and so I walked home defeated in the heavy heat.
I think the phrase is ‘Bugger’.
petescully 