London: Leicester square

 

Drinking coffee on a terrace. Next to us was this elderly gentleman, with a rather out-of-London accent. He was so occupied talking to his wife and friends, I managed to draw him on location without him noticing. I am proud to say, the drawing resembles.

London: airport

 

Waiting at the airport (Stansted), drinking some watery coffee. She was sitting opposite, long enough to make this quick sketch. She left before I finished painting, that was improvised.

London: Camden Lock

 

Camden Lock, a busy shopping experience in a former warehouse complex next and under the railways. It's a busy tourist trap, but interesting anyway. I was there 15 years ago, and it was new end fresh then, but too many nutella and T-shirts shops for my taste. Good to draw though.

London

 

Returned from London this afternoon. A quick sketch made in the Underground, central line, between Liverpool street and Stratford. Wasn't easy, the train was very crowded.

Sketches from my father, 1949

Last weekend my mother had an unexpected surprise: while cleaning up the attic she found an old travel journal of my father.
The journal contained a detailed description of a visit my father made to a family in Cambridge (UK), just after the war, back in 1949.
And to my surprise: it included 21 sketches of buildings, people and items like a television (which he had never seen before! See sketch above).

During the war some English soldiers were interned in my grandfathers house, and over the years both families kept contact.
My father was invited to visit them in 1949, when he was about to start his study as teacher in English and history. He was 19 years old at the time.
I knew he had made that trip, he had told me about it, but I can't remember that I ever saw that journal.  
Now I know from whom I inherited my drawing skills. Of course I always knew that my father was very creative: he could make anything he saw from wood. But I have never seen him draw or paint.
I would have loved to share this with him, but he deceased back in 1999; we still miss him every day.

Taxi to Coventry

Short business trip to Coventry (UK). Plane, taxi, meeting, taxi, plane. Didn't even get to see the city. But maybe I didn't miss much, the Specials made a song in the 80's about Coventry called "Ghost town"....
The things that always surprise me about UK taxi's: they have chairs for 6 people, of which 3 sit backwards. And the windows are plastered with safety instructions.

Stoke Newington: Albion road

This is Albion road in Stoke Newington, one of the London suburbs.
It's the part of town where my daughter Rianne lives presently. I was waiting there for the night bus N73, in order to return home.
In my eyes it's a typical London suburban street, with rows of small colourful shops mostly run by Pakistan, Turkish or Chinese shopkeepers. London must be one of the most multicultural cities I've ever visited.

Brief visit to London

I made a short visit to London, to visit my daughter, the Sir John Soane museum and the Egyptian part of British museum.
I flew yesterday morning as early as 7 a.m., and returned to Maastricht his morning at 9.30 a.m.

Above a sketch I made in a café Costa, near Spitalfields.
Here an impression of the fish and chips luch, that we took at a local pub near the British museum. The F&C were not that good, not warm enough, and quite expensive. But it filled well.

Shoreditch high street station

There is no fun in drawing in the dark, so with these december days, dark and always busy at work, there is not much opportunity for Urban sketching .

I decided to pick up Urban Painting again. This one is based on a picture I took at the Shoreditch high street underground station in London. Oil on board/canvas, size 40x50cm.

Camden Lock retried

A sketch of Camden Lock, London.
I made this painting on location during my visit to London in September, in a Moleskine A4, but it went totally wrong.
Normally I don't even try to improve a waterolour gone wrong, but did it this time anyway.
Washed away dark spots, reinforced parts with extra colour, tried to enhance the composition, added some white gouache.
Even though it improved more than I expected, it's still not to the standard I wanted to reach. But why should I only show the good ones here?

Tower bridge, London

This is it, the only drawing left from a fine weekend in London. I made this one in the large Moleskine (which I stacked in our suitcase, which was not stolen).
We were staying in the (excellent) hotel "the Tower", located adjacent to the Tower Bridge. For a few hours we even had a room with a view towards the bridge! This view was drawn and painted from the 1st floor bar, while resting our tired feet and enjoying a nice pint of Guinness.
I should add that I drew this image late in the evening. As the bridge was fully lighted I was able to draw it as if it was daylight. I considered drawing it as if by night, but the bar was dimly lit and you need good light to paint an acceptable night scene. Believe me, I tried.

Camden market

I am pretty occupied at the moment, work and all, a lot of sketches waiting to be scanned and published, but not enough time. Here is leftover sketch of the Camden Lock market, one of the enclosed squares with stalls selling Banana shakes, wire jewellery, leather jackets and Ethiopian food. Fantastic place, whenever you get to London, go there.

The stables

On Sunday our group went to Camden lock, and visited the markets there. A part of that area is called "the stables", it's a fleamarket located under a railwaycrossing and decorated with bronze statues of horses. Bizarre and fantastic. This huge bronze head was about 2 meters high+ it filled the arched passage under the bridge completely. Drawn with a pentel paintbrush on location, colour added at home.

New Oxford street

One morning I rose early to make this drawing, on the corner of New Oxford street and Tottenham Court road. It was just one block from the St. Giles hotel where I stayed. On the left side you will notice the Dominion theatre, which features the Queen musical "we will rock you". Drawn on location, added colour at home.

Mummy

British Museum, Egyptian department. Above a real mummy on display. It's awkward to realise that this was a person real and alive about 3000 years ago. And now thousands of people, coming from countries he never knew existed, come to look at his remains. I also sketched a nice model of the gifts the ancient Egypts buried in their graves, two beautiful and intricately detailed models of riverboats. The realistic pose and detailing of the boatsmen is stunning.

British Museum

When I was in Liège with the Belgian USK sketchers, Lapin gave me a little sketchbook, with his drawings on the front. I took it with me to London, to try it out. This is a quick sketch that I made the first day, of the courtyard of the British Museum. I made it while waiting for the rest of our group to return, in maybe 10 minutes. I loved the dome, a fine meshed glass roof, designed by Norman Foster.



Olympic games

This is what I went to London for, a visit to the buildings of the Olympic games. But even though a guide was waiting for us at the swimming pool, we were not allowed to enter the fenced off terrain, as we would not be performing professional working activities there.
Makes you wonder how sportsmen will ever be able to use the sportfacilities there. By wearing a hard hat?

This is a sketch (as seen from the fence) of the "Orbit" , a building of 115 meter high. It looks like a steel octopus catching a flying saucer in mid air.

We visited a few other architecturally interesting projects, and lunched on our way back to the center of town in Shoreditch.
I had a real good classic British pie there, with beef cooked in Ale, mashed potatoes, green peas and heavy gravy. As sketched below.

St. Pauls, London

Last night I returned from a visit to London. I made a trip with the Dutch architect association BNA, and in 4 days we visited a lot of architectural highlights in the city. Old and new. Luckily I was able to make a few drawings as well.
This one is the view from the top floor of the Modern Tate (art museum), showing the St. Pauls silhouette across the river.
They have a long table stretching along the façade with this view; I had a nice brie and salad sandwich with a strong coffee when I made this drawing. That's the way to draw something like this.

The Swan

Just returned from a trip to St. Helens, England. I spend the evening drinking Guinness beer in a local pub called "the Swan", where I sat quietly reading a book and drawing this guy spending too much money on a jackpot machine. As they saw me drawing, other visitors started talking to me about the town. They told me about the oldest house in St. Helens, a Quaker house dating from 1676, long before the first coal was found. I found the cute little building, hidden between some derelict houses, the next day during my early morning walk. See above sketch. Bezoek aan St. Helens, Engeland. Schets van een gokker in de pub "the Swan", en het oudste huisje van St. Helens, uit 1676. 

St. Helens

 Visit to St. Helens, UK. I was able to make a stroll before the dark set in, and made these 2 sketches. Left the backside of the Sefton Arms in center of town.
The bottom sketch is an original glass melter from about 1790, part of the St. Helens museum "world of glass", located next to the hotel I stayed in.
England has a lot to learn about food: we went to an Italian restaurant; much to our surprise we got mashed potatoes with our meat.... No pasta for miles.
Bezoek aan St. Helens, Engeland. Ik kon nog net een wandelingetje maken voordat het donker werd. Bovenste schets is de achterkant van een lokale pub "Sefton Arms". Beneden de uit 1790 stammende glasoven, onderdeel van het museum "world of glass".