Category: Urban sketch

Lamb’s Buildings EC1

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St Joseph’s Bunhill Row on right. From the church notice board: “A small chapel in the basement of a former school 1901”. Contains windows from St Mary Moorfields 1820. Remodelled 1993 by Anthony Delarue “in a vaguely Florentine Renaissance manner”.
The crib is there until Feb 2nd, and the church is open Fridays 12noon to 3pm.

Straight ahead is Cass Business School, and to the left is Finsbury Tower.

The lamppost was leaning, just like that.

Drawn and coloured on location, sitting on a wall, about an hour and a half.

Gambier House from Shepherdess walk

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Gambier House constructed 1968, 20 stories, 115 flats. Owned and managed by Islington. Planning proposal for external cladding, 18 Sept 2014.

Eagle Dwelling 212 City Road, on the left of the picture, is a “specialist supported housing scheme for single homeless people who may also have additional complex needs”. It seems to be owned and managed by “Family Mosaic”, a private company, who recently merged with Peabody.

The Royal Star, the “BAR” in the picture, is a pub which serves food.

This picture drawn and coloured on the corner of Shepherdess Walk and Nile Street, Islington EC1. Very cold and windy. About one and a half hours.

Under the bridge

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The view looking West through the Millennium Bridge. Drawn from the Thames foreshore. About 45 minutes + coloured later.
The tall tower is 1 Blackfriars. It still has a way to go up.

Two City Sketches

From an office window
Above Great St Helens

The view from an office window, Tower 42 on the left. This was sketched from indoors, nice and warm. The challenge was to avoid getting watercolour spots on their pristine office furniture.

The view “above Great St Helen’s”, shows what you see if you look up towards the North from the Aviva building in Undershaft, near the Gherkin. The cupola is above St Helen’s Place, 62-69 Bishopsgate. This sketch done standing up, in the cold. Coloured later.

The Charterhouse EC1 – Over the boundary

Two sketches, both from Preacher’s Court, The Charterhouse. One shows the view looking South West, past the new accommodation block. The other looks North East towards the John Vane Science Centre of Queen Mary, University of London campus.

View South West, beyond the Admiral Ashmore building

The new accommodation block in Charterhouse was built in 2000, designed by Michael Hopkins and partners, architects also of Portcullis House. It is called “The Admiral Ashmore Building”.

View North-East, with the John Vane Science block in the background

The John Vane Science Centre houses, amongst other things, the London Genome Centre.

In the Charterhouse, the leaves show Autumn colours, untroubled by wind, in the enclosed courtyard. It was still very cold. I sketched there from 09:30 to 12:30.

Saint Bartholomew the Great

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From the main gate of St Bartholomew the Great, off West Smithfield.

 

The Admiral Ashmore building

Here is a sketch from Preacher’s Court, Charterhouse.

I did it just after “The Well House” sketch.

3 Nov 2016 (2)

I liked the three ages of buildings: the 16th and 17th Century Hall on the left, the Admiral Ashmore Building (2000) and the 1970s office blocks and flats behind, with scrappy enhancements, probably 21st Century.

I got very cold.

A brother came by and told me he was the oldest, at 88. He was going to lead Grace at lunch. Everyone would have to stand up. It was like being at school. “I have the mind of a 15-year-old boy,” he informed me, “You had better watch out!”

The Well House,  Charterhouse 

Here is one of my favourite views in The Charterhouse. That curling support for the guttering (top left) is characteristic: details that delight the eye.

I drew this standing in the roadway. The suppliers and drivers coming and going were very gracious.

Barbican towers are just visible over the autumn trees.

Here’s what it looked like before the colour:

3 Nov 2016 (1 - outline only)