Category: Watercolour

St Bartholomew the Great: Cloth Fair

Cloth Fair is a small street near Smithfield, EC1.

Just South of Cloth Fair is the ancient church of St Bartholomew the Great. I sketched this church from Bartholomew Passage, shown on the map above. Later in the week, I sketched it from the South West side.

St Bartholomew the Great is an ancient church, founded 1123, along with the nearby hospital of St Bartholomew, now called Barts Health NHS Trust.

There is a labyrinth of alleys in this area. As I was sketching in Bartholomew Alley, a woman reached the North end of the Alley, staring at her phone. She rotated through 36o degrees, still looking at the phone. Anxious and frustrated, she rushed along Bartholomew Alley, passed me and stopped. Her plight was so desperate that she was going to abandon the instructions of the phone, and ask a stranger for directions. She asked me if this was the right way for the hospital. I said that it was, but it was complicated that way. “If you are in a hurry,” I said, “you’d best go back the way you came…”. She was in a hurry. She uttered an expletive, and set off in the direction I’d indicated.

Then she remembered her manners and paused, turned to face me, and said “Thank you for the information”.

Here are some maps of the new “Barts Square” development, showing the location of the second sketch.

  • Sketch map: Barts Square development and sketching location
  • Barts Square development, location.

I have sketched often in this area, which is changing rapidly. I am still learning my way around. Here are some of my sketches round here.

Barts Square, West side

Today I went to try out “Halfcup”, a new coffee place which has opened on Bartholomew Close. It’s part of the new “Barts Square” development. These are new buildings in an area that was previously St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Some of the external features of the original hospital buildings have kept, as you see in the…

Barts Square, Butchers’ Hall

Continuing my exploration of Barts Square, EC1, today I drew Butchers’ Hall. Butchers’ Hall is the building with the arched windows, in the centre left of the picture. It is the headquarters of The Worshipful Company of Butchers. This livery company is very old, the Arms were granted in 1540 and the charter by James…

A concert at St Bartholomew the Great

Here is a post-card sized sketch of people listening to the concert. It felt as though the stones were listening too. Pen and ink in small Seawhite journal, about 20 mins.

St Paul’s Cathedral from Wren Coffee

Wren Coffee has re-opened! This is a marvellous coffee shop in the Church of St Nicholas Cole Abbey, on Queen Victoria St.

I went there and sat on the raised terrace, sketching the view Northwards towards St Paul’s Cathedral.

St Paul’s, from Wren Coffee

The grey building in the foreground is a nightclub. It has dark windows, and a barred loading bay.

Raised voices from the table behind me grabbed my attention as I sketched. High drama was in progress. One of them defended himself in a loud voice, “The money is real money, and it’s still there. Trust me on this!”.

When someone declares “Trust me on this!” all sorts of red and amber alert lights come on in my head. Was the money still there? Did I trust him on this? I thought not. The other two men were not convinced either.

I kept my gaze firmly forwards, towards the view I was sketching. I did not observe the participants in this conversation, I did not join the debate. I cannot even be sure there were three men rather than two. Certainly at least three points of view were expressed. It was hard to follow the conversation, especially for someone trying to concentrate on tone differences, perspective lines and the symmetry of domes. And not all of the conversation was conducted in the strident tones of the accused party.

Here are some photos of work-in-progress on the sketch, and a picture of the beautifully crafted capaccino made by the server at Wren Coffee.

  • Preliminary sketch and work in progress
  • Finishing the colour
  • Measuring the dome
  • Capaccino by Wren Coffee
  • Bakewell Tart by Wren Coffee

I have sketched St Paul’s before:

St Pauls and Bastion House

I am sketching the views out of the window. Just visible over the top of Bastion House is the top of “OneBlackfriars”. In the foreground: Mountjoy House, Barbican, on the right. Along the bottom is the Barbican Highwalk which joins Mountjoy House and Wallside. I have drawn Bastion House before: This drawing took rather a…

St Paul’s from Old Fish Street Hill EC4

I was keen to draw this view of St Paul’s before it vanished behind the new building on 2-4 Cannon Street. “PLP’s scheme, for global property firm Pembroke Real Estate, will replace a 1959 modernist office building by Theo Birks called Scandinavian House. The north facade, facing the cathedral, is the most orthogonally formal, with red…

Sketching on the journey South

On the ferry from Lerwick to Aberdeen I had an “outside” cabin with a window. From there, I had a view of LK62, named “Research”.

LK 62 “RESEARCH”

Despite the name, this is not a research vessel, but a trawler. It was launched in November 2018, according to a very informative article in Fishing News.

Aboard a quite different vessel, the Northlink Ferry, I arrived in Aberdeen the next morning. Aberdeen was in lockdown, and I planned to spend as little time there as possible, just two hours, before my train left for the South. My idea was to sit in the sun outside the ferry terminal, eating my packed breakfast, before a gentle stroll to the railway station. Ha! I arrived in Aberdeen in the middle of a rainstorm. Roads had become rivers. On the periphery of my vision, a drain cover had lifted, and the water rose from it in a translucent pillar. I struggled towards the station through floods and wind.

…the floor was covered in a thin layer of water….

Aberdeen station was a huge glass tent, with the rain battering, and lightning visible, dimly, through the roof covering. It also resembled all the tents I have ever known in that the floor was covered in a thin layer of water. I sat down damply on a damp metal bench. All the trains were cancelled. Fortunately, I had some banana cake. I drew a picture. Then I found a helpful official and a bus.

The bus was going to Edinburgh. I drew a picture on the bus. After having been in Shetland for three weeks, I noticed that there were huge trees, everywhere. The sun came out.

On the bus: wind turbines, fields, barns, and TREES.

Shetland: Lera Voe phone box

This is the Lera Voe phone box, which is on the road between Burrastow and Walls.

The Lera Voe phone box

The phone box is a landmark. This year it was renovated, and fitted out as a sanctuary and small room. There is no phone in there any more, unless you bring your mobile phone with you.

Henry Anderton did the renovation. His project was partly financed by a reward he obtained for having found a message in a bottle on one of his beach-cleaning outings. You can read about it in this article from the BBC, published in February 2020.

The article says of Mr Anderton: “He has bought the phonebox, near Walls, for £1 and been supplied with the regulation red paint from BT. He said: “We’ve now launched a crowd funding operation to help out the renovations – we’ve got to find a door first.”“

Evidently he found a door, because when I visited in July the phone box was complete, bright red and in great shape. There are shelves and a seat inside.

I wanted to draw the phone box with Lera Voe in the background. This is the view from the field behind the phone box. You can see the voe, and the hills beyond. The road is just behind the phone box in my drawing. “Voe” is a Shetland word meaning “sea inlet”.

Here is work in progress on the drawing.

Here is the article from the BBC mentioned above, as a PDF file.

BBC article about Lera Voe phone boxDownload

I have drawn phone boxes before.

Here is a group of phone boxes in Smithfield, London:

Phone boxes in Smithfield, EC1, London. See this blog post.

Here is one in Austin Friars, EC2, London: see this blog post.

These phone boxes , which were called Telephone Kiosks, were designed by Giles Gilbert-Scott in the 1920s and 30s. Giles Gilbert-Scott was a prolific architect, who also designed Cambridge University Library, the North Wing of the Guildhall in the City of London, and Bankside Power Station which is now Tate Modern.

The phone box at Lera Voe is a “K6” phone box, designed by Gilbert-Scott for the jubilee of George V in 1935, following his successful design of the K2 phone box in 1924. The K6 is distinguished from the K2 by the embossed crown, and the fact that it has 8 rows of windows, rather than the 6 rows of the K2.

It would be possible to date the phone box had I been more careful in drawing the crown. The crown is painted red on the Lera Voe phone box, as it was on the original phones boxes. Only in the 1990s did BT start painting the crowns gold.

There is a whole history of crowns on phone boxes. Here’s a summary [data from Wikipedia and “The K6 project” ]:

  • From 1926 to 1953: the Tudor Crown was used, first on the K2 then on the later editions including the K6.
  • From 1953 onwards: the St Edwards Crown was used, except in Kingston upon Hull
  • Then in 1955 the Scottish Crown started to be used, in Scotland also in certain other places.
  • Crown of Scotland
  • St Edwards Crown
  • Tudor Crown
  • Tudor Crown on the older K2 phone box

So if anyone happens to be passing the Lera Voe phone box, I’d be very grateful for a photograph of the crown, to see which one is on there.

Update:

Thank you to a kind friend for sending the photo below:

Crown on the Lera Voe phone box: clearly a Tudor Crown

This is a Tudor Crown. This phone box therefore was installed some time between 1935 and 1953.

Shetland: Burrastow beach and pier

This is the pier at Burrastow.

On the other side, there is a pebbly beach.

This is the North Atlantic, latitude 60 degrees N. The temperature of the water is 11 degrees C. Very refreshing! There is a lot of sun between the rain.

Here is another sketch of the pier, this time watercolour only, no pen. It is evening.

Burrastow Pier, evening.

Latitudes: Burrastow is 60 degrees North. The Arctic Circle is 66 degrees North. London is 51 degrees North. The Equator is zero degrees, and the North Pole is 90 degrees.

Shetland: Burrastow House

“On the remote west side of Shetland you can find spectacular scenery, peace and the ideal refuge for the escapist. The guest house welcomes you with peat fires, a cosy library and all the marvellous food you could want after a day of exploring….” This is Burrastow House , near Walls.

Burrastow House from the front garden

The house is right next to the sea. Here’s a view across the bay.

Burrastow House from the beach

Around the back is a vegetable garden and polytunnel with herbs in. Here’s the view from the back. See all the chimneys!

Burrastow House from the vegetable garden

And here’s another view from the front garden.

Burrastow House from the garden, near the wall.

Here is work in progress on these pictures.

All pictures drawn and coloured on location, using a paper block by Saunders Waterford “St Cuthberts Mill” 300gsm Hot Press and Daniel Smith Watercolours over De Atramentis waterproof ink.

Thank you to my hosts, Pierre and Han.

Shetland: vehicles in space

There’s a lot of empty space in Shetland. As I walked around, sometimes I encountered abandoned vehicles. Here is one.

Drawing the car wreck

This was the last of a sequence of such car wrecks on a track. Having passed two, towards the end of a long walk, I encountered this one, the third, and thought I would take a rest and draw it. The car number was even on there.

Here’s “Chieftain”: a huge and solid vehicle. He is out in the wild, perhaps not “abandoned”, but he is evidently not in daily use, which is a pity, since he looks very useful.

I tried very hard to describe the heaviness and strength of Chieftain. He is also very large. I should have put a few birds in too, for scale.

Shetland: sea and hills

Here is the view from the Historic Site near Pinhoulland.

Voe of Browland from the Historic Site

The lines on the right are a mussel farm. Here is another sketch from the same place. Here you can see the cottages in the distance, near the Bridge of Walls.

Voe of Browland, distant cottages

Further towards the sea, the view widens out. Here is the view from another walk, looking towards the island of Vaila.

Looking to Vaila, from the Nettle Beach.

I drew this having scrambled up the hill. Four hikers had arrived, and were on the beach. Four people seemed like a huge number, a crowd, more people together than I had seen in a week.

Shetland: garden flowers

In the polytunnel there is fennel. I learned that you can eat the flowers. They have a very sweet aniseed flavour.

Oranges, Hybrid Woundwort, fennel flowers.

I became adventurous. There are other edible flowers in the garden:

Edible flowers and herbs from the garden

Salad with flowers, and fishcake.

In the evening, the sun shone through the petals of a lone poppy.

I admired its tenacity, out there on its own.

Shetland: Foula on the horizon

Here is a sketch of the mysterious island of Foula.

Foula on the horizon

Foula is about 20 miles away from Shetland Mainland, so it hovers on the horizon, often with its own special cloud.

This is a view from the Virda Stane, which is at the top of a hill. It’s a rare view: normally at this stage on the walk I would hunkered down on the East side of the stone, with its bulk sheltering me from the howling West wind. However on this particular day, there was eerily little wind. So I could sit on the West side, and observe Foula, before it disappeared in the fog.