Stood Standing There

Very pleased with this one from Life drawing.

My mate Tiff, who is a regular reader here ( hiya ) and had flown in from Ohio, gamely came along for the session. She had never been before and I didn't want to push too much because, at the end of the day, it is NUDITY.  But she said she enjoyed it and did some cool sketches.

I guess it isn't the first place people think to take visitors to London. Naked people in a Quaker meeting house isn't exactly up there with Big Ben or the Tower. But in my opinion it should be.

An idea has just occurred. A travel company that finds oddball Meetups to take tourists to.

Dragon's Den here I come.

Goodbye 2012

Hello 2013.

Wasn't going, it was pouring with rain. Then it cleared up and wasn't too cold. So I went.

Not the best of views, and not the best of sketches.

But that isn't the point is it ?

Happy New Year everyone.

Make it a good one.

Pearly Whites

Look who I got me. A pearly king no less. Brilliant.

He was the Pearly King of Newham, as written on the back of his jacket.

Might have to do some shading on him, bring out the buttons.

Film hangout.

Was waiting to meet someone in the bar downstairs at the Curzon Soho the other day. Had got there early, so did some sketching. You always get film folk working on their new script or having meetings about projects there. There was even some actors rehearsing something the other day, standing up, acting it out, the lot. It's like Dean Street's unofficial office.

Anyway...

This guy was intent on his Apple laptop. Script...e-mails... couldn't see.

But very pleased with how he turned out.

Had a few tries at his head shape, the truth is somewhere in all those lines.

These Associations

Anyone else see the recent turbine hall installation at Tate Modern ? Tino Sehgal had all these people moving and interacting with visitors, sometimes singing and then merging back into the crowd like they had broken out of the usual and then been claimed back by the real world. He says it was a portrait of London as diverse view points rather than one person's idea.

I loved it, it seemed to touch on so many connections, Flashmobs, Olympic athletes and crowds, Lowry's crowdscapes, Pollock's random gestures, shoppers, cathedral choirs.. I could go on. Small kids joined in and ran about with them like the adult world had finally woken up to the real fun of living.

And every so often one person would detach, fix on you as you watched, and come over to tell you some small story from their ordinary experience.

I was told, at various visits, about a guy buying bread and beer late at night in Brixton, a couple missing the Eurostar to Paris twice in one day, a woman in bed with a headcold while a fair set up in the field behind her house, an American woman being surprised she knew all the words to the US national Anthem after living in the UK for so long, and others.

It struck me these small tales were as much sketches as any drawing, they were selected views of someone that told something, but not in any way all, of that person. And I thought what would it be like if I sketched them whilst they told me these, a sketch of a sketch. So I had a go, and it was weird. I tried first with a girl who was telling me about her relationship with her mother ( I did ask if they minded before I did anything ) And it was way to intense. To be that close to a stranger and to look at them as subjects to sketch was too much. To look at and into someone's eyes, to see the tiny flecks of colour in their iris as they told you these things broke too many barriers. One girl almost jumped when I asked, and if the piece was about breaking down the wall between people my sketching did it too much. For both of us. Whilst putting another wall up at the self same time. The relationship between viewer and subject is an odd delicate curtain at the best of times, to try and throw it up instantaneously proved disjointing.

Everything I drew was odd, and uncomfortable, a bad idea. And I had to back away from the idea and go back to distance sketching.

So all I have to show for it is this, of someone else being talked to.

Whereas I was told about people's relationships with their family, and about them reassessing their world from another's point of view, this guy was getting a lesson in how to make tomato sauce.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3ztm3nTFxs

Watch this clip for a taster of the piece, if only to see the girl on the red scooter !

It was 25 years ago today...

Well, not actually.

I was going to post these last week, but the scanner problem stopped me, so allow me the small delay.

It was 25 years last week when the Big Storm swept across Southern England and toppled all the trees.

I was at college at the time, and walked thru Kensington gardens to get there everyday. The sight of all those trees, shattered and uprooted, was astounding. Some of the root systems were as big as houses.  It was a surreal and charged place for several weeks as they worked to clear them all away.

Anyone else remember the avenue of plane trees towards Kensington Palace that were all flattened ?

I went out sketching the next day, it was too beautiful and sad and unreal to not. And here are two from that day.

I was included in some photographs a news reporter took, but have never seen if any of the photos with me in were ever used anywhere. I suspect not. The world can only deal with one trauma at a time.

This was my favorite sketch, at the time, and now. You will need to click on it to enlarge it to see it.

This tree had literally been twisted apart, the truck standing upright, but every single branch had been ripped away and lay around like huge scattered arms. It was up by the Lancaster Gate entrance between Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. I also added a sketch of the photographer. in the top corner, see.

Seeing the sketch again brings that day back in such sharp focus. I am back there, right now, on the same spot, in my mind.

Oh Frabjous Day

Callooh Callay.

I have a shiny new scanner my son.

Now I have some catching up to do.

Found a great spot to catch people in the National Gallery last friday. It was cold and raining and I was in Soho with an hour in hand before a meeting. In such moments, and in such a place, you could do a lot worse than the National Gallery. A LOT worse. But I am way too boring for that. so....

This guy was part of a very animated group discussing their cameras.

I liked how the cube stool he was sitting on got all squooooshed under his weight.

Not fixed yet.

Scanner still in intensive care, but had this one ferreted away.

I called it Legs Over.

Drawn in Soho Square, a few summers ago.

In a row

Not a great sketch, but I liked the image.

A row of Games Makers, waiting to assist in the Paralympic Women's Shot Put.

Their job was to fix each paralympian's seat to the throwing plate and make sure they were satisfied with it to make their best throw.

Paralympic sadness

Overheard in the Olympic park yesterday...

A Mother comforts her distraught young daughter. " Don't be sad, it was only an inflatable Mandeville ".

And, at the end of the day, as I was leaving...

A family of four, the youngest son sobbing into his Union Jack, bawled out, " but we'll never have this again. Ever ! "

I know how they both feel.

Paralympic apparel

The ultimate must have accessory of the summer.

Paralympic weekend pt 2

Sunday I had a day pass to the Royal Artillery Barracks - current home of the Shooting and Archery.

Thought I would go for an hour or so... stayed all day. It was utterly brilliant.

Firstly, Pistol shooting.

No idea what the rules were, or how the scoring went, or who was in the lead.

Or even who won.

I made a few notes look, this was Yunas Bahceci of Turkey. Like the nonchalant hand in pocket.

And Zivko Papaz of Serbia.

I want to say this guy was from Japan, but I didn't note it down. After the noise and frenetics of the swimming it was so calm, and still and ( because of the ear plugs we all had to wear ), quiet, almost contemplative. Just the steady raising of the pistol arms, and the occasional sharp crack of each shot. It was almost monastic in it's focus.

And it occurred to me,I don't think I have ever sketched people in wheelchairs before. 

Which is not something I am proud to admit.

Paralympic weekend Pt 1

Went to the swimming on saturday. Saw Elli Simmonds break her own world record. Which was excellent, but also hazardous to human ear drums, as the noise the audience made literally hurt to hear.

Mostly forgot to sketch, but here are two from in between the splashy stuff.

I was up in the stands looking down over a whole row of people recording the events for each team. Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan were immediately in front of me, according to their shirts. I assume they are so the swimmers can watch it back and see how they did, how they can improve.

I could do with someone to do that for me in general

Had to add some quick colour to this one, loved the blue of the pool, and the red and yellow of the lane markers.

All life should be that colourful and clear.

Global

Went to the Globe to see Henry V the other night.

There were, of course, people to sketch.

This guy had been to the earlier playing of 'The Taming of the Shrew'. I liked that he had the essentials for a Shakespeare viewing - a programme and an i Pad.

Once more unto the apps dear friends.

That was weak, wasn't it ?

Two lines

Two attempts at the one line portrait.

Works best in profile.

This guy was waiting for friends outside Somerset House the other monday. I know this because I was waiting there for a friend as well, and his friends turned up first.

Night birds

Was taken, if not exactly kicking and screaming, but with no massive enthusiasm, to an Owl City gig last night. And, not knowing the music, there is very little I can think to say about it that won't make me sound like the proverbial old fart.

But was breaking in a new sketch book, so I enjoyed myself.

He played with 100% energy and his audience were astoundingly enthusiastic. In my day ( oh... here we go... ) youth were into a bit more rebellious a sound, but, hey, everyone knew all the words, and sang them to their loved ones with a seductiveness that, I hope, achieved the desired end result, so whatever...

And, as the man says, Planet Earth turns slowly.

Festival steps

These two were sitting and chatting on the steps of Festival Hall the other week.

Didn't quite get her leg right.

She moved it.

Pins and needles, probably.

Hold on

Sometimes the tube can be a perilous ride.

Family day out

Ended up killing some time in the City last bank holiday ( mainly because the DLR wasn't running that day ).

The buzz and fuss of folks around the periphery of the Tower of London had to be seen to be believed. If it had been an army I think old William Conker would have been stressing out. Moats are no defense when there are souvenirs to be had.

There were copious food outlets to sustain the invasion. So much for starving them out. How many besieged citadels would have remained steadfast if they had had a Starbucks outlet somewhere in their back streets ? Hey, Infidel hoards, I mock your battering rams and siege engines with the sugared crunch of an almond biscotti.

So... families eating.

History and vittals. A fine day all told.

The future is now

Two families of Italian's on holiday, with suitcases and children dragging along behind them. Just flew in to Luton I'm guessing.

They sit and discuss where they are heading. One guy clamps his sunglasses in his mouth, wrestles out his i-pad and is instantly looking at a London street map. All the information they need opens out in successive pop-up windows, like the city was a flowering shrub, it's streets branches, blooming just for them.

The future is already here.