Glorious Shetland! I make postcards when I am there, to communicate what I see.
Here are small sketches of the landscapes on the West side of Shetland.
They are A5 size or smaller, on watercolour paper.
The smaller postcards are 6″x 4″. The birds are done using masking tape.
Here is work in progress on the “reflections” postcard.
The A5 postcard is fastened to the backing board with masking tape. The backing board is cardboard: the back of a pad of paper. On the left is a strip of watercolour paper to try out the colours and the brush strokes before I put them on the card.
Then when the drawing is finished I remove the masking tape, which leaves a neat edge.
Colours are Daniel Smith watercolours, on Arches Aquarelle 300gsm paper. All whites are the white of the paper.
NEXT YEAR, 2026 – “Sketch and Sail” is going to Shetland! I will be on board the sailing vessel “Lady of Avenel” with a group of fellow artists. Would you like to join us? We’ll be living on board for a week, sailing round the coast of Shetland. It will be a marvellous opportunity to see the magnificent cliffs from below, and the land from afar. No experience of sailing or sketching necessary. Sunday 31st of May to Saturday 6th June 2026. See this page for more information, or contact me.
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I had been travelling a long time. Reaching Old Aberdeen I sat on a granite kerbstone and sketched The Old Town House. Behind me was a friendly bookshop, where I had bought a map.
The Old Town House, University of Aberdeen, in Shetland 2025 sketchbook, size A5.
Having sketched, I walked into the picture I had drawn, and towards the trees on the left of the Town House. There I discovered a building being taken over by plants.
There was a plaque on the building, with writing on. You can see it in the background of the photo above. I couldn’t read the plaque at this distance, and neither could my phone.
Some tourists came by, laden with backpacks and cameras. They paused, curious to see what I was drawing. Since their eyes were younger than mine, I asked if they could read the plaque. They couldn’t, and neither could their phones. My next idea was that they could try using the telephoto lens on one of those formidable-looking cameras. With good grace they shrugged off a hefty block of technology, and removed its canvas housing. It had a fine lens.
“Mitchell’s Hospital, endowed by David Mitchell 1801. Reconstructed 1924.”
So now we know.
Mitchell’s Hospital, The Chanonry, Old Aberdeen. Sketch in “Shetland 2025” sketchbook, A5
David Mitchell founded the hospital as an almshouse “from a regard for the inhabitants of the city of Old Aberdeen and its ancient college and a desire in these severe times to provide lodging, maintenance and clothing for a few aged relicks and maiden daughters of decayed gentlemen merchants or trade burgesses of the said city..” [Wikipedia entry quoting the deed of mortification of the Hospital]. It was used as such, housing elderly ladies, up to to around 2016 when the final elderly resident, Iona Mathieson-Ross, had to move out.
A later article says it has been sold, and that the new owners are refurbishing the building as small residential units to be let, possibly as short-term holiday lets. The planning application on Aberdeen Council’s website shows a building looking identical to the existing one, cleaned up and repaired.
From the planning application 241449/LBC Proposed elevations, North and East
It sounds like a dream come true for this neglected building:
“PROPOSED WORKS Roof: Allow for removal of all moss and vegetation Allow for replacement of missing slates in size, thickness and colour to match existing. Check ridge tiling and re-bed any loose tiles. Chimney stacks pointing to be checked and where missing to be repointed…
…Chimney cans to be reset…
Granite Masonry: Pointing to be checked and where missing to be repointed…
Windows: Existing sash & case windows to be checked & where wet rot is evident timber sections to be replaced with same profile in Redwood. Windows to be refurbished to ensure they are fully operational and fitted with draught stripping internally….
External Doors: Existing external doors to be replaced with external quality Redwood 4 panel doors with double glazed obscure glass in upper 2 panels fully weather stripped primed and painted…
The planning application was approved on the 3rd July 2025, a few days after I was standing there doing my sketch. Perhaps when I next visit Aberdeen the improvement work will be in progress. Maybe, if it becomes holiday lets, I can even stay there.
I’m glad it’s being refurbished, but I shall treasure the view of this graceful building gradually being assimilated into the plant world.
Here is a map showing my walk and Mitchell’s Hospital.
I had coffee in Kilau Coffee – recommended!Sketching in Seaton Park, before the rain. St Machar’s Cathedral.
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Walking through Jericho on my way to the station, I glimpsed this church tower, and heard its bells. I wove through the small streets until I found it.
St Barnabus Jericho, OX2 6BG, sketched 26 April 2025 in Sketchbook 15.
This is St Barnabus Jericho. Its website says that it is also known as “Oxford Basilica”. It was built as the daughter church of St Paul’s, which is the Grecian-style building on Walton Street, now no longer a church1.
St Paul’s is not far away, just the other side of The Oxford University Press. It was opened in 1836, and became part of the “Oxford Movement”. The Oxford Movement was campaign within the Church of England, led by influential clergymen and theologians in the 1830s. They challenged the contemporary way of thinking in the Church, saying that services were too plain, and that much of value from the Catholic tradition had been left behind. They sought to re-instate some of the theology, pageantry and ritual from the Catholic tradition, and they put it into their services. They also had a social calling, drawn to help working people and the disadvantaged.2
As you can imagine, this was contentious: popular with some people, and regarded as suspicious and un-English by others. In the 1830s, the movement flourished in this part of Oxford. The services at St Paul’s became so crowded that another church was needed. In addition, Oxford University Press moved into its huge site on Walton Street in 1830, which brought many workers to the area. So an additional church was created, and this was St Barnabus.
“The land for St Barnabas was given by George Ward who was an Oxford ironmonger, and the benefactor for the Church building was the generous Thomas Combe, Printer to the University, along his wife Martha.” [https://www.sbarnabas.org.uk/history]
St Barnabus opened for worship in 1869, and is flourishing to this day. Inside it is awe-inspiring and uplifting, with its highly decorated walls and vast size.
I sketched St Barnabus from outside “The Old Bookbinders” pub, delighted and frustrated in equal measure by the extraordinary detail in that tower. And I was looking at its clock, which informed me of the passing minutes until my train.
I finished the pen-and-ink drawing. Then I walked on, past Worcester College, to the railway station.
Sketchbook spread, St Barnabus Jericho. Sketchbook 15.
Footnotes
St Paul’s: the impressive Grecian temple building on Walton St is no longer a church, but the “St Paul’s” name lives on. I’ve done an earlier sketch which shows St Paul’s Nursery, still very much in operation and part of Somerville College. ↩︎
Oxford Movement: This is my non-specialist summary of a significant and complex theological and social movement. For a proper description see, for example the Wikipedia Article, or this glossary article.↩︎
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This 19th Century building on Walton Street is a nursery school. It contrasts with the huge sweeping curves of the Blavatnick School of Government behind.
St Paul’s Nursery, 119a Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6AH. Sketched 25 April 2025 in sketchbook 15Map of the sketching location, showing the sight line of the sketch.
The building now houses a co-ed nursery: “St Paul’s Nursery is a 16-place day nursery that caters for children between the ages of 3 months and 5 years. The Nursery was established as a work place nursery for the staff of Somerville College, but now opens its doors to children whose parents work elsewhere.” [note 1]
The original building of 1848 is described in “The Builder” magazine of that year. [note2]
Here is what it looked like originally:
According to the (fascinating!) article in The Builder, the school was originally only for girls. Inside the building pictured above was a “dwelling house” for the mistress, a room for the vicar “to conduct his parochial business” , and a school room “55 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 18 feet between the apex and the floor”. Because there was no outdoor playground, the architect placed the school-room on the “second floor” and the lower room became the playground. I take it that by “second floor” the author meant what we now call “first floor”. The author of the article, who seems also to be the architect, describes with pride the construction of the roof:
“In the construction not a particle of wood has been used. The roofs are supported on terra-cotta ribs, with transverse sleepers of the same material, and the floors, arched on geometrical principles, are formed by tiles set in cement ; both are of undoubted strength and durability.” [from “The Builder” article, see note 2]
So the structural elements of the roof are terracotta? Really? If anyone has been inside this excellent building, can they tell me if this is still the case? Did the roof and the floors turn out to be durable, as the article says?
“St Paul’s Nursery” is now part of Somerville College. “St Paul’s Church” is the big building like a Greek temple which is on Walton Street on the other side of the Blavatnik building. It was out-of-use as a church by the early 1970s, and became a wine bar called “Freud”. It now looks sadly dilapidated. Some of its history is on this link.
The Blavatnik School of Government started in 2012. It moved into the new building on Walton Street in 2016. The building is by Herzog and De Meuron. The architects’ drawings of it, and some internal and external photos are on this link.
The Blavatnik School of Government mission statement, as written on the door of the building.
I made the sketch from a convenient bench outside the Oxford University Press. The bench was dedicated to “Paul Cullen 1943-2011 Oxford Pedestrians Association”.
Starting work on the sketchThe bench dedicated to “Paul Cullen 1943-2011 Oxford Pedestrians Association”.
The inscription on the bench was easily read. But there was an inscription on the building I’d been drawing, and I couldn’t read that.
There is a stucco scroll with writing on the gable of the nursery building. Try as I might I could not read it.I assumed my ageing eyes were at fault. So I stopped two young people on the pavement and asked them if they could read it. They took my request seriously, and gave the task their full attention, which was kind of them. However they could not read it either. “Something Something CCC something something” was our joint conclusion. 1848 would be MDCCCXLVIII. Does it say that? If you are walking along Walton Street with a high-powered telescope, or if you have an old photo which shows the building in a less eroded state, then can you tell me what it says?
What does it say? (The iPhone can’t read it either….)St Pauls Day Nursery and Blavatnik building. Sketchbook 15 page spread.
The letter is apparently written by the architect. They say, for example, “we have perhaps rather exceeded the bound of usual practice in ornamental detail” and refers to “our site”. But he or she does not sign their name, simply giving initials: “T.C.”. I have not been able to discover who “T.C.” is.
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“This tranquil little pub now faces the back of the Royal Courts of Justice, the esteemed Gothic Revival building opened by Queen Victoria in 1882. Within The Seven Stars’ ancient charm of three narrow rooms that make up its public area, drinking in Queer Street (as Carey Street has often been called because of the bankruptcy courts) is contrarily pleasant. One can linger over gastronomic pub food and real ales behind Irish linen lace curtains that are being twitched by litigants, barristers, reporters, LSE students, church musicians, and West End show brass sections. Then, one might navigate to the lavatories up the comically narrow Elizabethan stairs. There are antique Cabinets of Curiosity in the pub’s front windows, and alongside Spy prints of former judges, there are posters of “Brothers in Law,” “A Pair of Briefs,” and other bygone British legal films.”
The licensee is the marvellously named Roxy Beaujolais.
Again quoting from the pub website:
In February 2006, FancyAPint listed The Seven Stars as one of “London’s Top Ten Pubs.” A 2006 review in On Trade, a pub industry organ, told it like this:
“We are here to be adored, not ignored,” says Roxy imperiously. “We sell fabulous beer with proper, homecooked food; and I expect my customers to appreciate both of those things.” In the current climate of customer satisfaction at all costs, her words may sound nigh on heretical. But this is a woman utterly qualified to call her own shots, and anyway – her combination of buxom presence, top class conversation, beautifully cared for ale, and sumptuous food is such a winning one that few would feel inclined to argue.
Sketching the pub, I enjoyed the landscape of chimneys. The art of the chimney-maker is not enough noticed. They are unsung sculptors. All those legal offices and chambers behind the Seven Stars must have plenty of fireplaces. Hence the chimneys, here present in great numbers and in extraordinary variety.
Chimneys seen from Carey Street.
This sketch took about an hour and a half on location, and I finished the colour at my desk.
This is an interesting terrace, just to the East of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
121 and 123 Tyers Street, SE11 5HS, sketched 17 April 2025 in Sketchbook 15
The terrace house on the left has a terracotta plaque let into the brickwork:
A HOUSE FOR NICARAGUA Built 1984-91 to celebrate the Nicaraguan Revolution Sold to support community projects in Nicaragua
The website “Radical Lambeth” has an article which tells more. The house was restored as a community endeavour, led by a visionary, Ron Tod (sometimes spelled Todd):
“He had some money from a house he had built out of an old airfield shed in Essex, and he thought some of the people he was living with might help with the work. About 200 people – men and women in their twenties and thirties did…”
“Almost all the materials for 121 Tyers Street came from skips, building sites or dumps. The floors are parquet, retrieved in one great haul from a skip….”
Even from the outside, the house is feels beautiful. The windows are all different, and there is intriguing detail, such as the terracotta frieze above the window shown in my picture. This is a house built to a loose design rather than a rigid plan. Much was created by the people there, as they went along, using materials to hand. Sketching it, I was reminded of the work of the 1970s radical architect Christopher Alexander, “A Pattern Language”.
The house in the centre of my picture is 123 Tyers Street. This is much plainer. But it also is intriguing. The lower windows are not directly below the upper windows, but shifted right.
I sketched sitting on the wall opposite.
Sketchbook spread, Sketchbook 15
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On the way to and from Sketch and Sail last week, my journey took me through Glasgow. I spent a few hours walking around that city, sketchbook in hand.
Here is West George Street, looking east, downhill towards St Georges Tron Church.
This was a Sunday. Glasgow was quiet. Until there was the sound of flutes, or perhaps more accurately fifes. And then a procession. I tried to sketch the people as they walked by.
Who were they? What was it about? I had sort of guessed, before I asked the police officer. “The Grand Orange Lodge” he told me. So this was an Orange March, a procession by Protestant fraternal societies. I had heard of them in the news as taking place in Northern Ireland, but I had not heard of them in Glasgow, or anywhere else. They arouse contention in some contexts. This procession seemed low-key and passed through peacefully, gone almost before I had thought through what I was looking at.
I walked on, in the opposite direction, towards the West End of Glasgow.
In Glasgow there are magnificent Victorian buildings, some of them strangely derelict and empty. Here is the roofscape of the former buildings of Glasgow City Council: huge empty buildings around a vast courtyard.
Here is an eight storey building on Hope Street: “The Lion Chambers”, perhaps a former legal practice.
One of the joys of walking in cities is that you pass through invisible membranes, barely detectable boundaries between the derelict areas and the areas that have been reinvigorated, or between the commercial areas and the residential districts. As I walked West I saw a tower on the horizon, with a parapet.
This looked like the type of tower I have sketched in London at St Thomas’ hospital.
But on closer inspection it turned out to be a church. Or rather, it had been a church. Now it is a residential tower called “Trinity”, looking very smart.
I was sketching between rainstorms. By this time I was high up overlooking the city.
A bit further on there is the botanic gardens. The rain stopped and suddenly the place looked like a sunlit utopia, with people of all kinds and all ages out sitting on benches and chatting to each other amongst flowers and cultivated trees. Further on still, I came to a river.
It was time to turn around and head back East. I became comprehensively lost amongst the pedestrian underpasses knotted around the M8 motorway. But an elderly gentleman put me right, turning around and walking with me to the summit of a bridge, from which vantage point he could indicate the correct route with his walking stick.
It’s a city of many cities, is Glasgow. Wealth and dereliction, renovation and decay. There is a sense of waves of renewal, ups and downs. Or perhaps that was just because I was returning from a sea trip, and the pavement was not yet entirely steady under my feet.
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I’m thrilled to be one of the tutors on the Lady of Avenel “Sketch and Sail” adventure. I have just returned from the May 2025 voyage in the Scottish western isles.
Postcards from Sketch and Sail May 2025
We travelled over 100 miles, much of it under sail. Fellow artist Alice Angus and I delivered sketching workshops to a companionable group of participants, and everyone made lots of sketches. Some people also steered the boat, managed the sails, swam on the sandy beaches, and a few brave participants went up the mast.
If you would like to join us on a future trip, there is another date in August – and two more voyages are planned for 2026. See this link for more information or contact me.
Here are a few of the many photographs from the May 2025 trip:
Swimming at SandrayA postcard of distant islandsArt workshop on the foredeckThe sails and a crew memberRainbow near CannaCrew member furling the sailJane and Alice preparing for an art workshop in the saloonNathalie sketching on the foredeckShore partyaction shots: Lady of Avenel May 2025 (photo credits: janesketching and Natalie)
Here are some of my sketches from the trip.
I took an A5 sketchbook from JP Purcell, and sometimes sketched the landscape view across two pages:
A quick sketch from the train northThe impressive cliffs and stacks of CannaA quiet anchorage at CannaFrom the sandy beach on Sandray
The beach at Sandray was a great sketching location. Here is a photo of my sketching spot.
Here is one of the drawings I made here:
There was a stream running down the beach.
The stream on the beach, sketch made using seaweed and sea water.
The other sketchbook I took was a small A6 toned watercolour book made by Hahnemühle.
The toned sketchbookTony looking at the Outer HebridesA sketch of the ship, looking towards the prow.
On the way back to London I had a few hours walking and sketching in Glasgow – I’ll put those sketches in another post.
Meanwhile, here is a sketchbook flick-through so you can see the whole week in seven seconds of silent video. [videos might not play properly on mobiles or emails – please try the web-based version]
Sketchbook flick-through.
Materials:
My main sketchbook was 300gsm watercolour paper, A5, from JP Purcell in Southwark, London. The bird sticker on the front is my design, printed by Vistaprint.
A well-used sketchbook: A5 watercolour paper, from JP Purcell.
I also used a small toned sketchbook from Hahnemühle.
Here is my colour palette, all traditional watercolours:
Colours used this week: all Daniel Smith except the Ultramarine Blue which is Schmincke Horadam
Here are the brushes I use. Mostly I used the large flat brush, which is from Rosemary Brushes. It is about an inch across.
Any other questions? If you’re interested in the Sketch and Sail adventure in August, or next year, do get in touch.
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Here is the magnificent London Water and Steam Museum.
London Water and Steam Museum, sketched 15th March 2025, 4pm in sketchbook 15.
It’s definitely worth a visit if like me you are fascinated by steam engines. But there’s more. This museum is a whole education in the London drinking water and sewerage system: past and present.
The building I’ve sketched houses the “100 inch pumping engine” and the “90 inch pumping engine”. These are steam pumps over a hundred years old. The inches refer to the diameter of the pump cylinder. Their job was to pump drinking water from the Thames to premises in London. The 90 inch engine started working in 1846 and the 100 inch started in 1871. They both retired in 1943, by which time the 90 inch had been going 97 years. The 100 inch gave a demonstration in 1958, which was the last time it pumped water. The 90 inch was restored to working order by enthusiasts in 1973, and now gives demonstrations in the museum. The 100 inch has yet to be restored.
A glimpse of part of the 100 inch engine
The tower in my sketch is not a chimney. It is a “standpipe tower”. It holds big vertical pipes and a reservoir to store water and regulate the pressure. The strokes from the steam engines created powerful surges of water. You don’t want those powerful surges going directly into the mains water supply, and as they might damage the pipes and surprise consumers. So the steam engines pumped the water up this tower instead. From there, the water flowed out to consumers smoothly.
Providing running water was a whole big problem in the Victorian era. The machines were gigantic so that they could generate sufficient water pressure to get the water up to the second floor of the new Victorian houses which had bathrooms upstairs. That’s not something we normally think about: but I can see it’s an issue.
a glimpse of the 90 inch engine
Then there was the whole big issue of the purity of the water, and whether it was actually drinkable. There were a number of private water companies at the time, in competition with each other, and vying for business, making claims for their water quality, and returning dividends to their shareholders. This was the late 19th century – 100 or so years ago.
A display panel soberly tells us:
“Despite making huge profits the water companies had not lived up to their promises. The quality of the water was still variable and the amount being pumped sometimes left homes and businesses without water. The companies’ focus on profits rather than service was a major worry and so the government decided to get involved. In 1904 the government created the Metropolitan Water Board and bought the eight water companies to create a single network covering the whole of London. …
Display panel: “The companies’ focus on profits rather than service was a major worry and so the government decided to get involved.…”
As well as history, I learned about today’s drinking water.
For example: did you know that 10% of London’s drinking water is de-salinated water from the Thames estuary? The “revolutionary new de-salination plant” opened in 2010:
I watched a gripping – and somewhat alarming – video of heroic engineers cautiously making their way down soaking brick-lined pipes in the sewers below London streets. They were down there to inspect and clear blockages. I also saw the “rat” robots that can be sent down the smaller sewers – it’s a tough environment for technology.
As well as all this gripping factual information, there’s much of strange beauty in the machinery. I particularly enjoyed the devices and dials.
Definitely recommended. It’s on the underground. No café: take a picnic to eat at their indoor tables.
It closes at 4pm – I managed to do the sketch from the garden, just before they closed the gates.
Sculptural debris in yardThe steam train in the grounds: returning to the shed at the end of the day.
I added the colour later.
Sketchbook 15Part of the 90 inch pump: analogue film photo, Olympus XA2 using Kentmere Pan 400 b/w film. 15th March 2025
Information in this post is from placards in the museum or from their website. Inspired by my visit to the museum, I read this excellent book about London’s water supply:
“The Mercenary River” by Nick Higham
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See this interesting building! It’s just a few hundred yards from Brick Lane in East London.
1 Wood Close E2, sketched around midday, 9th March 2025 in sketchbook 15
I’d walked past it a few days previously, when I had been taking a circuitous route through East London on the way back from Hackney Wick. It’s an unusual building for the neighbourhood, most of which is terraces or blocks of post-war flats. This building stood out, on its own, at a street corner. What is it doing there?
Sketch map showing the location of Wood Close: just to the east of Brick Lane.
I went back a few days later for a closer look. On the white band at the front of the building I could decipher some words: “ERECTED 1826 [something] FIELD AND THOMAS [something] CHURCH WARDENS”
London Picture Archive has a photo of this building from 1946. The words on the front were a little clearer in 1946, so I can read that Thomas’ second name was MARSDEN. The London Picture Archive caption says that “the building began as a watchman’s house in 1754. The watchman was to guard against body snatchers who provided corpses for dissection to local hospitals. ” So that’s what it was doing: it was guarding the graveyard.
The London Picture Archive caption goes on to say that “In 1826 the building was enlarged so that a fire engine could be housed there.” That’s the building we see now, labelled 1826. It doesn’t look big enough for a fire engine.
19462025
In the London Picture Archive photo from 1946, the street name affixed to the building says “Wood’s Close” which would indicate it was named after someone called Wood. Today the street name on the building is “Wood Close”
This link shows a 1872 map. Here’s an extract. Click the map to go to the National Library of Scotland map which is very detailed. The street is called “Wood Close” on this map. You can see the “Grave Yard (disused)”. The Watch House, circled in red below, is in the corner of the graveyard, which makes sense.
Area around Wood Close: 1872. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland CC-BY(NLS)
As you see in my sketch, there are now a prodigious number of bollards in front of the house. I counted ten of them, standing like an amused crowd next to the “7′-0” sign . While I was standing there sketching, I saw why. The idea is to restrict the width of St Matthew’s Row so that vehicles have to slow down or stop, and cars can’t sneak round the edges. I watched agog as huge limousines edged between the bollards.
A large car navigates the bollards. St Matthew’s Church is in the background. A van only just fits through.
This Watch House, and the nearby Parish Hall are owned by St Matthews Church:
The Church also own the Watch House on Wood Close, which is currently let out to private tenants, and the Parish Hall on Hereford Street, currently let out to State51.
Jane Sketching 