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.

The only way to watch Olympics

Is sitting in a park.

With friends.

The ENORMOUS sandwich

You know the phrase "never eat anything bigger than your own head" ?

I rest my case.

Cuban rescue.

Sketched this woman in her blue D&G knock off top whilst we sat in a small park dominated by a statue of Cervantes.

And then, later on, as we were being accosted by a bloke wanting us to give him money, there she was again, sitting on a wall outside the National Cuban Art Gallery. And I said hello, and she smiled back, and then told the bloke to leave us alone.

Or at least that is how I am interpreting that situation.

365 - well there you are then

So, here I am. The last sketch of the challenge. Strange. Didn't think I would be posting from an (almost) snowed in art dept in Luxembourg when I started it. In truth I thought it would get abandoned half way through.

But I have enjoyed this so much, and met some great people in the process. Big thanks to everyone who has been by, and everyone who commented, and, absolutely, everyone who 'sat' for me, however unwittingly. Not done with this, but for the moment...


... one last sketch. Number 365

A girl, in the park on that brilliant summer sunday. Took a long time to choose. But, from the current cold grip to the lazy warmth of that day...

...there you go. 

365. 

Done.

360 - nearly there.

Snowy here ( and everywhere ) at the moment. So a sketch from the summer, and a day people watching in the park.

I don't know what she was saying, but loved her knees.

Is that so wrong ?

Goodbye summer - 292 - 293

Two from the hot days behind us.

When I left for work on friday morning there was a whole sense of autumn on the way. The sky was what I call seaside sky. Grey and flat, but with a few gaps of washy blue in the distance. You know, when you were a kid and had a week by the sea, and the weather was crap, but every morning you focused on that distant patch of possible, as if by sheer kid's willpower you could bring it your way, and get a day on the beach.

These two guys were from that day of everyone in the fountain.

Never underestimate willpower.

Music for birds

Soho square.

This guy, in his army green sweater, somewhat full of himself, playing his guitar for, I assume, the pigeons.

He was on the bench just inside the gate on the Charing Cross road side. I did several of him, as he was settled there for a while. And you get to wondering about back story. All the guitar shops are just around the corner, has he just brought it, and is breaking it in ? Or one last tune before he sells it ? Or maybe he has just had it restrung ( my lack of knowledge of guitars painful there, think I am confusing them with tennis racquets ) Or is that pure conjecture, based on my always ferocious desire for narrative ?

The Background Extras in your story are the Undaunted Heroes of theirs.

Already a distant memory x 2

That hot spell we had last month seems ages ago at the tail end of this rain soaked August.

Caught some people cooling off in a fountain, sitting inside the basin, leaning back against the edge. But who would have thought that it would all have passed before I got around to putting them here.

Had issues with the bloke's head, two different sizes going on at once there.

Loved this guy's spine. And very pleased with the shape of it in the sketch, the line of the vertebra.

Lizard tattoo

A lovely hot day.

This guy had a small lizard tattooed on his shoulder, and it looked like it was basking in the sun. But I didn't spend that much time on drawing it as this was one of those rare sketches where I managed to get the whole pose in. And the line enjoyed the mobile on his belt more. And the bottle of Coke.

His foot is getting a little confused with an aborted sketch of another person. Maybe I should have cleaned it up a bit, oh well.

Supermarket lunches.

Two work mates sitting on the ( somewhat dry and dusty at that time, but by now hopefully rain relieved ) grass in Hanover square one lunch-time. And another plastic fork.

How did we get to be such alfresco grazers ? We roam the great Plains of Sainsburys, we pick our way through the forests of Waitrose, to forage and gather our daily ciabatta.

I know I use my local Tescos like a larder. And go there almost every day to decide what to eat. I would undoubtedly waste away if they closed down. It would take a considerable amount of time, but waste I would. In the end.

August - Moon watching

Was lazing in Green Park with a friend, and the moon was already high in the afternoon sky above Whitehall, all transparent and matte paintingy, and we were watching it ( not that it was about to do anything watchable ) and talking rubbish.

And it is always amazing that, when you look up at it like that, that there is essentially nothing between your eyeball and the surface of the Moon at that moment in time. Nothing. Just distance and atmosphere, and someone is now going to tell me all the rest of the stuff that is technically between me and the Moon, and I'll give you a guess how far I would want to throw them...

Big fan of the Moon on The Mighty Boosh too.

Big fan of the Moon all round.

Holland Park

Not a brilliant drawing, but the memory cache that comes with it is fantastic. It was a late August sunday a few years back. I was coming to the end of a job and had that tired dizziness that you can almost relax into and enjoy, knowing the tough stuff is all done. It was a gorgeous day, a full blowzy sun had stirred the dust and breath of London into a haze that even Seurat would have struggled to pin point. Found a spot above the bank that slips down into the rose garden in Holland park, and sketched folks as drugged by the high, open air as me.

You know when light is just there... that was this day. Mazy path with insects, slowing the people, burning out the rose bush leaves. None of that in the sketch really, but all still buzzing in my head, and my eyes and the roses.

219 - thong

Posting this one with a degree of trepidation.

I am not an old leach, honest. 

2 sketches of City Workers

In this kind of weather offices everywhere empty themselves onto any available green space ( or brown space, or even grey space ) at lunch time. Suit jackets get shrugged off, ties loosened, chicken wraps unwrapped.

I always envy people who get to wear smart clothes to work, although I know everyone who does would tell me I would hate it. To be certain that what you had on wouldn't be covered in paint, or plaster, ( or worse ) by the end of the day would be nice, just for once. I have never worn a tie to work in my life. 

Sums

At first this guy looks like another phone texter, but in fact he had a small pocket calculator and was adding up over and over.

He sat in the square, in the sun, in his pullover, and just added and subtracted. And maybe multiplied. But no note book or pen or hint of what his sums amounted to.

There was a clumsy bluntness to him that I am glad the odd shaped arm kind of gives. The weight he was putting behind that finger as he stabbed in the numbers. And that single. furious concentration between him and the machine. This was beyond work, this was obsession.

But more Calvin and Hobbes, than Calvin Klein.

Bench hug

Not sure if that is technically a hug or a possessive grip he has on her there.

69 - a quick one.

Another quick sketch from the summer park day.

Any sapphic, numerical undertones are all resolutely in my head.

43 - father watching daughter

An old sketch from sitting in Soho square. I was waiting to go to an interview for a job and had got there way too early. Sat on the bench by the Pizza express side and caught this bloke opposite.

He was there with his Daughter, who was intent on Pidgeon chasing ( what is it with kids and birds ? ) and I did other sketches with her in them as she kept running back to sit with him a while, then leaping from the bench and off she went. He was trying to get her to eat their lunch, but I think she was expending more energy that she was consuming that day.

I like his leg, how it suggests the other knee without me having to draw it. And the other arm and the rest of the bench. I would love to be able to say this is by design, that I know when to stop, but it was more likely because his Daughter came running back and he moved his position.

For some reason this one has loaded with a white border around it. Love it but have no idea how or why. Think I have posted this one elsewhere, so that might explain it.

40

So, in the middle of all this snow and cold. An image from the height of last summer, in the park.
Sat opposite this girl as she ate her lunch and read her book. It was baking hot, and bench space was at a premium. As one person moved on another quickly took their place. There were people laying all round on the grass, sitting on the wall around the flower beds. Pret-a-manger sandwiches by the cart load, and the park cleaners emptying the bins by throwing one bag into another for speed. There was a school trip as well, the kids alternately feeding the pidgeons, and tormenting them.

Loads of subjects. You can almost fill a book on days like those. The whole world becomes a free life drawing class, everyone stunned into submission by the heat.