Sketching from the window, here is Ben Jonson, part of the Barbican estate.
The people who live on the top floor of Ben Jonson have sunlit roof gardens. You can see one person enjoying his garden. He sits just at the bottom of the blue fire escape ladder.
There is also an interesting void space shown in the lower right of the picture. It was empty when I was drawing, but sometimes someone’s legs are visible, using the space for sunbathing. Sometimes they set up a table and chairs there.
Here is work in progress. I used colours: Mars Yellow, Burnt Umber, Prussian Blue and a bit of Perinine Orange.
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The tower in the foreground is part of Frobisher Crescent. Frobisher Crescent itself is on the left. Ben Jonson House is on the right. On the horizon you can see Centrepoint, and the Post Office Tower.
This took 2 hours. The sun moved, of course.
Colours: Mars Yellow, Perylene Maroon, Prussian Blue, all Daniel Smith watercolours.
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On the left is the fire door, and on the right you see the carpet sweep up in a glorious curve to the underside of the window. This is a Barbican Feature, which is a challenge to carpet fitters.
At the bottom of the far wall, to the right, is the important box fastened into a power socket. This is the power line device which extends the WiFi internet through the re-inforced concrete walls of the brutalist building.
The chairs are “utility furniture” made in the 1940s and 50s, to standard designs making the most of scarce timber. New furniture was rationed at that time. I bought them in about 1998 from a shop in Brighton, and they’ve travelled with me.
Here is another view from the sofa, looking the other way.
Here you see my knitting, together with associated paraphernalia: instruction books, a bag, scissors and bits on the table.
That little table came from my parents’ house. The knitting wool came from Shetland.
The sofa came from the shop on the Tottenham Court Road that used to be called Habitat, and perhaps still is. It is long enough to lie on, full length. That was my criterion.
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Just before Christmas 2018, our neighbour arrived at our door with an orchid. He was going away, and didn’t want to discard the plant. He told us he didn’t need to have it back, and we shouldn’t worry if it died. It came from M&S. We took it in.
We are not great gardeners. We just left it and it grew. Our neighbour returned from his holiday and said no, he did not want it back. And it kept on growing. Now it is a flourishing plant with several stems and multiple leaves. It lives in a tiny flower pot, with hardly any soil.
It threw out various extra stems and strange root-like protuberances, which seemed to be seeking new lands. I’ve been meaning to see if it would propagate. So last week I carefully embedded these extra stems in soil, as you see.
Rooting one of the stems
Rooting one of the root-like protuberances.
Indoor orchid propagation attempts.
When I say “embedded in soil”, I am not strictly accurate. We live in a flat in a tower block, and there is no soil up here. So the orchid is rooted in coffee grounds.
If anyone knows anything about orchids, and can provide advice, I would be glad to hear it. This seems to be a particularly robust specimen, and produces flowers all the time. It is a delight.
Here is work in progress on the drawing.
Sketching the orchid.
I’m drawing in a large Saunders Waterford sketchbook. I originally bought it for urban sketching, but it was too heavy to carry about. I also found the huge pages, 11″ by 10″, meant I did huge pictures, which took a long time, standing outdoors in the cold. The paper is also more absorbent than I am used to, which means that my washes don’t go very far and I have to keep refilling the brush. So now, being at home, I am using it to make sketches in the flat, where I can sit down and be warm.
This sketch took about 2 hours, including hanging up the laundry while paint dried (another advantage of working indoors).
Colours: Prussian Blue (DS), Perylene Maroon (DS), Mars Yellow (DS), Burnt Umber (Jacksons).
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This is Whitecross Street. The people are in the well-managed queue for the Waitrose supermarket, which is underneath the building to the right.
In the foreground: Ben Jonson House, Barbican. On the left, behind Ben Jonson, in pink, is a children’s playground at first floor level, part of Prior Weston School.
Drawn looking out of the window, about an hour and a half including a phone call from a friend.
The friend called to tell me the answer to a crossword clue which had defeated me.
Colours: Mars Yellow (DS), Perylene Maroon (DS), Phthalo Turquoise (W&N)
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The building in the background is the Heron Building, luxury flats above the Milton Court Concert Hall, Guildhall School of Music and Dance. This building opened in September 2013. It replaced a public building, which was in the brutalist design of the Barbican and designed by Chamberlain Powell and Bon, It housed a fire station, Coroner’s Court, mortuary, office of weights and measures and a civil defence school, and was connected to the Barbican by a bridge at Podium level. This building was demolished in 2008, in the face of opposition from the Twentieth Century Society amongst others, and was replaced by the steel and glass tower. This new building has no bridge to the Barbican, which is a pity, in my view.
At the extreme right is City Point.
Here is work in progress:
This drawing took ages. I couldn’t get the steps right. After 30 minutes of drawing and rubbing out I restarted at 12:10 and finished 1hour30mins later.
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If I look East, along a narrow angle, I can see two new tall buildings in Shoreditch: the “Principal Tower”, and “The Stage”. They are on adjacent sites, about a mile away.
Looking East: The Stage and Principal Tower
The Stage is the tall building on the left, under construction. Their website tells me this will be a “dynamic 37 level landmark for luxury living”. The reason it’s called The Stage is because the remains of the Curtain Theatre were discovered on the site. This theatre was a location for the staging of Shakespeare’s plays, and dates back to 1577. The tower is provides luxurious accommodation. The planning report says:
The scheme does not include any affordable housing, and the viability appraisal confirms that it is not possible to deliver any due to the financial burdens of excavation and archaeological work to the remains of Curtain Theatre in order to create a cultural facility.
planning report D&P/2975/02 18 December 2013, Mayor’s decision*
The architects are Perkins+Will. The developer cited on the planning application was Plough Yard Developments Ltd. That company was dissolved on 23rd Aug 2019. The current owner/developer is “The Stage Shoreditch Development Limited” according to the website “New London Development”.
The building with the truncated spire in front of The Stage is “Triton Court”, which is on the North side of Finsbury Square. The little dome is part of the same building. This dome in on the older, western, part, which was built in 1904-5. The taller part with the spire was later, 1929-30. It was the headquarters of the Royal London Mutual Assurance Society. The building interior was redeveloped in 2013-15 and is now an office development called “Alphabeta”
The tall block on the skyline to the right of picture is “Principal Tower”. This is a residential tower which, according to the website:
“..offers the opportunity to own an architectural masterpiece, equivalent to a priceless piece of art that will give constant pleasure and lasting value.”
from the sales website: PrincipalTower.com, copied on 2nd April 2020
The architect is Foster+Partners. The developer is Brookfield Property Partners. Alongside and beneath the residential tower are offices and shops, in a space called “Principal Place”. One tenant of the office space is Amazon.
Here are some pictures from the sales website:
Picture credit: PrincipalTower.com
Map of Principal Place, from the PrincipalTower website.
Here are some maps:
My sketch map showing the locations of the towers in the pictureMap downloaded from the Principal Tower website. The brown dots are “cultural locations”. The red arrow shows the sightline in the picture.
The drawing took just over 2 hours. The colours are: Phthalo Turquoise (W&N), Mars Yellow(DS), Perylene Maroon (DS) and a bit of Perinone Orange (DS).
Work in progress
*The document is on the http://www.london.gov.uk site at this link: (downloaded 2nd April 2020) Planning Application 2012/3871
Sketching from home: here is a view of the chimney pots on the Peabody buildings of Errol St:
These chimney pots are interesting because they are all single rows. Also the chimney stacks are arranged in several different ways: along the ridge of the roof, across the ridge of the roof, up from the side of the roof, and along the structural wall between blocks. There must be a lot of fireplaces in these buildings.
Map showing the sightline of the drawing.
These blocks are part of the “Roscoe St Estate”, still managed by Peabody. I think this is blocks E and D, but I’m ready to be corrected. I don’t know what the tall industrial chimney is. If you know, please tell me.
This perspective was a challenge. Also the blocks are quite a distance away, and so it was hard work to pick out which set of chimney pots was which. After a while my concentration lapsed, and it all went into a blur. So this picture took about 3 hours elapsed time, including breaks for lunch, exercises, phone calls, and strolling about the flat.
Here are some photos of work in progress.
Working on the perspective
Urban sketching at home -photo credit: John Ramsey-
Pen
Sketchbook and palette. Try not to get the paint on the carpet.
Colours used: Prussian Blue, Mars Yellow, Burnt Umber, Perinone Orange. I made the black for the guttering from Prussian Blue and Perylene Maroon.
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Some time ago, I was given a Japanese sketchbook, which was in the form of a concertina of doubled paper. In the last few days I drew the world outside, as seen from the windows of this flat. It’s about a 270 degree view, mostly over West and North London.
Pen and ink, work in progress. Grey added using diluted ink.
During these days of indoor confinement, the weather outside has been beautiful. Stunning blue skies. So I put that in using Phthalocyanine Turquoise watercolour.
Panorama on the table
St Pauls Cathedral
London Eye, Shakespeare Tower
St Pauls, Bastion House
The HYLO Building
Blake Tower
Post Office Tower
Shakespeare Tower
The Stage, The Principal Tower
Epping on the horizon
The HYLO Building
Blake Tower
Blue skies, phthalocyanine turquoise
Then I made a videos. The first one, with the pointer, has an audio commentary. It’s quite quiet, you may need to turn the sound up. The second one is silent. This is the first time I’ve put videos on this site. Let me know if it works.
I added written captions also, as you see in the second video.
Here are still pictures from the panorama with captions.
Credits
This is the book, made by Haibara Chiyogami, Tokyo, Japan
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Jane Sketching 