Cosser St, SE1 – North West

Here is the third sketch of Cosser St.

It was a blustery day, as you see. In the background are the buildings on the other side of the Kennington Road.

There are many parked cars in this street. They are constantly on the move, coming and going. You can see some ghostly images of them in the distance. The main point of the picture was the building. I didn’t draw all the cars. A Civil Enforcement Officer wove her way amongst them, checking number plates.

A man came by carrying a large musical instrument in a black case on his back. I think it was a ‘cello. Then he came back the other way. Then he went back a third time. I noticed him all three times, and he saw me noticing him. On the third time, he came over and politely asked to see the picture. He obviously felt some explanation was needed for his criss-crossing the street multiple times. He said, “I’ve left my mobile phone at my friend’s house. And you don’t realise….” He trailed off, because it seemed redundant to repeat the modern problem: I can’t even phone him because, obviously, my phone is at his house and…”. “I’ll get it”, he went on, “So long as he’s up.” He grinned and shrugged, and carried on across the road. I was not entirely convinced by this story. Why, then, was he carrying his heavy musical instrument back and forth?

This is the final sketch in a series of three made for a commission. Here are the three. All are 12″ by 9″ on Arches 300gsm watercolour paper.

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The colours in this picture are: Buff Titanium (DS), Perylene Maroon (DS), Mars Yellow (DS), Fired Gold Ochre (DS) and Phthalo Turquoise (W&N). I did a preliminary sketch, which you see in these work-in-progress pictures.

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More detail about the other two pictures is here: