Compton, St John’s Square, London EC1

Clerkenwell has many interesting corners. Here is a view across St John’s Square. I sketched it earlier today, sitting on the step of the Priory Church of the Order of St John. The restaurant is called “Compton”.

Here’s a map:

Thank you to the kind person from the Priory Church. They emerged from the door behind me. There I was, low down on the step, at the pen-and-ink stage, with my materials laid out neatly on the stone. They obviously had not expected anyone to be sitting on the step. I had not expected anyone to come out of the dark door. It had looked as if it had been closed shut for millennia. After a moment of surprise, politeness prevailed and we both said hello. Thereafter, I grouped my materials into a compact heap, and they came and went, tolerating me amiably, and skirting around me to operate the card key system.

This picture has just four main colours: Ultramarine blue, Brown umber, Mars yellow, and Green Serpentine Genuine. The only other colour is Fired Gold Ochre for the terracotta: the chimneys and the flowerpots. All colours are Daniel Smith watercolours.

Here is work in progress: