Here is the magnificent Trellick Tower in West London.
Trellick Tower from the Golbourne Road, London W10. Sketched 28 November 2023 in Sketchbook 13
This tower is 271 flats, 31 stories, completed in 1972 to the design of Ernő Goldfinger (note 1). It is in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, near the Grand Union Canal and the A40 trunk road out of London. It is Grade II* listed (note 2)
After sketching, I was really cold. I found warmth and excellent food in the Sicilian Café “Panella” shown on the map above, recommended!
Panella – Golborne RoadSketching locationA bright and cold daythe base of the Trellick TowerSketchbook spread: Trellick Tower
I have previously sketched the Balfron Tower in East London, also designed by Ernő Goldfinger.
I was intrigued by this juxtaposition of two very different buildings, each radical in its own way. The top corners are just a few feet from each other.
A corner of Trinity College Dublin: Museum Building on the left, Library on the right with “Sphere with Sphere” in front. October 22nd 2023, in Sketchbook 13
The building on the left is called the Museum Building. It houses the Geography department, amongst others. I know this because there was a notice visible in one of its windows asking:
“Without Geography, where are you?”
This building was finished in 1852. According to the website “makingvictoriandublin.com” the style is called “Ruskinian Gothic”. The design is by Cork architects Deane, Son and Woodward, influenced by the philosophies of the English writer, artist and art critic John Ruskin, says the Making Victorian Dublin site.
Central to the design was a radical endorsement of the creative power of human happiness…the architects encouraged the freedom of their workmen [sic] in designing and executing the building’s external and internal carvings.
The external and internal carvings are very complex combinations of leaves and flowers. A notice inside the building tells us that all the building’s carvings are by brothers John and James O’Shea of O’Shea and Whelan and that they gathered wild flowers and animals (amazingly) to use as models.
Even as the Museum Building was being built the Dublin press recognised it as the first experiment in British and Ireland of Ruskin’s radical views – a clear demonstration of the ‘the desireableness of employing the minds of the workmen’.
This experiment’, wrote the reviewer in the Dublin Express, ‘proves the general correctness of [Ruskin’s] views, and, moreover, has resulted far better than even the most sanguine advocates of this system had allowed themselves to expect.’
The whole building is influenced by Venetian designs observed by John Ruskin.
The inside of the building is spectacular. As well as the soaring architecture and the fascinating patterns and arches, there are also two skeletons of elks, some dinosaur footprints, and a model of a floating crane boat. You could spend hours there sketching.
Museum Building, Trinity College Dublin, interior, 22 October 2023.
The building on the right of my drawing is a library, opened in 1967. It is in the radical style of that period: the Brutalist style. The building’s clean lines and functional appearance are characteristic of this style. The architect was Paul Koralek of ABK architects.
The library in 1967: Berkeley Library, Trinity College, Dublin: the entrance front and raised forecourt. Photo credit: Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections. [RIBA51354] Used with permission.
In 2017 the College ran a celebration of the library after 50 years. Their website includes pictures of the interior and furnishings. https://www.tcd.ie/library/berkeley
Two buildings talking to each other“Sphere with Sphere”
The spherical object in my drawing is a sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro called “Sphere with Sphere 1982/3” according to an inscription on the pavement.
I sketched for about an hour and a half. During that time waves of people crossed the square. There were a remarkable number of tourists, some with tour guides, moving in groups.
At one point, a solitary woman approached me and asked to see the picture. She smiled and said something in her own language which sounded like a compliment. So I said thank you, and smiled back. She told me that she didn’t speak English, and held up four fingers, counting, to explain she had only been here for four days. She was from Ukraine, she said. Her hands modelled an aeroplane taking off and landing. A wide uplifted arm gesture took in the autumn sun, the buildings and the people, expressing gladness to be here. She pointed at my drawing, and nodded again, making what was evidently a positive comment and a connection. Then she said goodbye and I said goodbye.
Sketching locationSketchbook 13
Colours used:
Buff titanium (all brickwork and concrete)
Mars Yellow (brickwork, concrete, sphere
Ultramarine Blue plus Lavender (sky)
Ultramarine Blue plus Burnt Umber (all greys)
Serpentine Genuine (trees)
a small bit of Cobalt Teal Blue and Fired Gold Ochre in the background
All Daniel Smith watercolours except the Ultramarine Blue which is Horadam watercolour.
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Here is the University of Oxford Nuclear Physics building, seen from the Banbury Road.
The Nuclear Physics building, now the Denys Wilkinson building, University of Oxford. Sketched 27 May 2023, in Sketchbook 13
The building was renamed the “Denys Wilkinson Building” in 2002. It was built in 1967 to the designs of architect Philip Dowson of Arup. The fan-shaped structure originally housed a Van der Graff particle accelerator, now dismantled. [https://manchesterhistory.net/architecture/1960/denyswilkinson.html]
Professor Wilkinson (1922-2016) was the Head of the Nuclear Physics Department from 1962-1976.
The building on the left is the “Thom Building” which houses the Engineering Department. This building had a marvellous “paternoster” lift in the 1970s. (Note 1). This is a lift with single compartments, which operates in a continuous loop, like rosary beads, hence the name. You simply stepped into one of the slowly moving compartments and were carried up or down.
Here is work in progress on the drawing:
The fan-shaped structure is a rare example of brutalism in Oxford. St Catherine’s College is another example.
Ought we to treat the Denys Wilkinson building and St. Catherine’s College as a celebrated chapter in Oxford’s aesthetic history, or as evidence of a period better forgotten?
Here is St Giles’ Church, Cripplegate, seen from the public walkway at Wallside. The church is surrounded by the Barbican Estate. Cromwell Tower is in the background. The City of London School for Girls is the lower building, centre and left. Through the gap between the church and the school, you can just glimpse the Barbican Centre.
The magnolia was in bloom!
St Giles from Wallside, Barbican, 1 April 2023 12″ x 9″ [Commission]
I painted this as a commission, for some clients who wanted this particular view. A special request for this commission was that I showed two ducks. These are small, but they are there!
Ducks on the lake.
The white shapes on the lakeside wall are gravestones.
Old London Wall is on the left: part stone, part brick. This is the old Roman wall round the City of London.
Thank you to my clients for this commission and for their permission to post the picture here online. It was a real pleasure to do.
The colours I used are:
For the sky: a pale yellow wash of permanent yellow deep, followed by a grey made from ultramarine blue and burnt umber, with some ultramarine blue for the blue bits.
For the church: the stone is a pale yellow wash of permanent yellow deep, then a dilute buff titanium wash. I put salt on it to get some texture. Then the dark areas are a grey made from ultramarine blue and burnt umber.
The top part of the church, St Giles Terrace and all the reddish/purple brickwork is a combination of perylene maroon, burnt umber, fired gold ochre, and a bit of ultramarine blue for the dark areas.
The lake, which really is that green colour, is ultramarine blue, plus some serpentine genuine which makes it granulate.
All concrete is the same mix of burnt umber and ultramarine blue with some mars yellow.
Old London wall is the pale yellow wash of permanent yellow deep, with a second wash of lunar blue with burnt umber. Lunar blue is highly granulating, which gives a wonderful stone effect. The bricks are fired gold ochre.
All green plants are green gold, and there’s also some green gold on the stonework of the church, to show the lichen.
The weathervane is Liquitex gold ink, applied with a fine brush.
The line drawing is done with a Lamy Safari fountain pen, using De Atramentis Black ink, which is waterproof.
The white parts of the picture, for example the lines between the bricks on Old London Wall, (and the ducks) are done using a resist. This is a rubbery substance, applied before putting on any paint. The resist I use is called Pebeo Drawing Gum. I put it on using a dip pen to get the fine lines. After the paint is dry, I rub it off, and the parts where it was show up white. There are also a few tiny dots of white gouache paint on the magnolia tree.
The paper is Arches Aquarelle 300gsm 12″ x 9″ in a block.
Work in progress. Arches Aquarelle block, Lamy Safari pen. The yellow is masking tape, which I put round to make the picture easier to handle and to give a crisp edge to the work. The people on St Giles Terrace were practising Tai Chi. It was very relaxing to watch them. See the green lichen on the concrete. And the magnolia.
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I sketched this from the outside tables at 88 Wood Street. A small coffee shop run by Dartbrooke Coffee has opened in this office block. The coffee was superb, the welcome warm, and they had a selection of food. Also they had tables both indoors and out. Here’s the view from an outdoor table overlooking London Wall.
Bastion House EC2 from 88 Wood Street, 6th September 2022 in Sketchbook 12
I liked all the angles.
That’s rain you see in the sky. I had to pack up quickly as the rain came down.
Rain on the painting!
This picture took 1hour 10 minutes up to the point in the photo above when it started raining. Then another 20 minutes at my desk to finish off.
Here’s a map. The building on the left of my drawing is 200 Aldersgate, a huge office block.
Map showing where I was sketching and my viewpoint.
Bastion House is the monolith in the centre of the picture, with the Barbican Highwalks below leading to the Museum of London.
Bastion House, the Highwalks, and the Museum of London are all under threat of demolition by the City of London and replacement with three huge office blocks, overshadowing the Barbican. All the bridges will be removed, and all the highwalks in this area. This is not a good idea, in my view, and I support the residents’ call to the City to stop and think. Do we need yet more huge office blocks…really? Can we not refurbish the existing buildings, as has happened successfully to nearby blocks?
Earlier this month, I made a quick sketch of Bastion House, from London Wall. Here’s a map: The architect was Philip Powell of Powell and Moya. The building…
Bastion House aka 140 London Wall is a huge modernist monolith, reminiscent of the monolith in “2001 – A Space Odyssey”. I couldn’t find a site to draw…
I hastened to draw the magnificent Bastion House, on London Wall. It is due for demolition. In the foreground you see the balcony and privacy screen of the…
The Brunswick Centre, in Bloomsbury, London has been described as a “heroic prototype for a holistic community” [levittbernstein.co.uk]. There are 560 flats, a cinema, a medical centre and offices in a single development: hence “holistic”. It was radical in that it differs from the Georgian and Victorian houses all around.
Brunswick Centre, Bloomsbury, 13:50 9th August 2022, in Sketchbook 12
It was designed by Peter Hodgkinson during 1966-1970. The original plan was to extend the development all the way up to the Euston Road. There was a significant renovation in 2006 by the architects Levitt Bernstein. They made the shop fronts extend into the plaza in the middle, renovated the flats and added an “anchor supermarket” (Waitrose) at the northern end.
Where I did the drawing
I sketched the pen and ink on location, then repaired to the Store Street espresso on Tavistock Place to do the colour. There are very few colours in the picture: Buff Titanium, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber and a tiny bit of Transparent Pyrrol Orange.
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Earlier this month, I made a quick sketch of Bastion House, from London Wall.
140 London Wall, Bastion House, sketched 2nd August 2022 from London Wall, in sketchbook 12
Here’s a map:
The architect was Philip Powell of Powell and Moya. The building was completed in 1976. I like this building. It reminds me of the “obelisk” in the film “2001 – A Space Odessey”.
The City of London have the idea that they are going to demolish this building, and the Museum of London next to it, and build three large office blocks: bigger and wider than the existing buildings, providing some 750sq ft of commercial office space.
This mystifies many of us, as we witness empty office blocks all around this location. It also angers us, as such huge buildings will take sun from the residential estate to the North. There seems to be a case for pausing the proposed project, and considering renovation of the existing buildings. Renovation would be better from a carbon emissions point of view, as demolition and construction are a large source of carbon dioxide emissions.
I hastened to draw the magnificent Bastion House, on London Wall. It is due for demolition. In the foreground you see the balcony and privacy screen of the flat in Andrewes, whose leaseholder had kindly hosted me. The line of red brick, and what looks like chimneys, in the foreground are the rooftops of a part of the Barbican, “The Postern”. Behind them is the Barber-Surgeons’ Hall on Monkwell Square,…
Bastion House aka 140 London Wall is a huge modernist monolith, reminiscent of the monolith in “2001 – A Space Odyssey”. I couldn’t find a site to draw the monolith part today, so here is a view at Podium Level, looking West towards the Museum of London. You see the dark undercroft, walkways and a road to a car park. Also you see the bridge that crosses London Wall. http://postwarbuildings.com…
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 long time as I stopped a couple of times. As a result, by the time…
Today Urban Sketchers London held a “sketch crawl” in the Barbican. So I joined them. An astonishing number and diversity of people assembled inside the entrance of the Barbican Centre at the appointed time of 11am. I counted about 35 and then another dozen or so joined. All shapes and sizes of people, tall, short, studious-looking or flamboyant, quiet or talkative, smart or windblown, old or young, all were there.…
From the highwalk on the Rotunda there is a really amazing view of the Museum of London and Bastion House. This whole view going to change radically, if the City of London plans are approved. The Museum of London is in the South West corner of the Barbican. It was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya. The Museum opened in 1976. The City of London plan to close it…
Have you seen this amazing annex to the Theatre Royal in York?
Theatre Royal Extension, York. 28 July 2022 in sketchbook 12. 10″ x 7″
It’s a stunning addition to the Victorian theatre next door. The older part of the theatre, on the right of my drawing, is in the Gothic revival style around 1879, designed by the then city engineer G Styan. The modernist extension, whose amazing soaring shapes are on the left of my drawing, was designed by Patrick Gwynne and RA Sefton, in 1967. The whole thing has been redeveloped in 2016, retaining the external shapes. I love the courage of this modernist extension. It’s not far from the station. I sketched it waiting for the train.
The Theatre Royal (in red) is just a few hundred yards from the station.
Here is a 21st century housing estate in the area. It’s an interesting contrast to the Theatre Royal extension. In this case the architects made new buildings which look traditional on the outside. They even have chimney pots. Inside they have 21st century standards of insulation, heating and plumbing. The chimney pots are simply decorative.
21st century housing in Yorkshire, in sketchbook 12, July 2022
Here are some smaller sketches I made touring around:
New housingOld high streetIn the Hepworth Wakefield
The Hepworth Wakefield was a revelation: well worth a diversion. It’s a beautiful building itself, which I shall be sure to sketch when I visit again.
Yorkshire – halfway up the UK mainland.
I’ve sketched in York on a previous visit, see this post:
Here is the “Micklegate Bar”, which is one of the great gates through the old City wall into the centre of York. I sketched this outside a bar called “Micklegate Social”. The staff were inside, cleaning and setting up. They…
Colechurch House on the South Bank is a brutalist office block. It makes a good subject for a packaging print. Since it is a a 1960s block, I added a 1960s type shape in chine collé.
Colechurch House – monoprint and chine collé, paper size,15″ x 12″ Shoji Baku Japanese Paper
The chine collé paper is Khadi Lokta Coloured saffron washi paper from Atlantis Art (ref: KPNI SA). The background paper for this print is Shoji Baku paper from Shepherds Bookbinders (ref: LRG 1859). The ink is Charbonnel traditional etching ink. I printed this on the Henderson Press at East London Printmakers. Here is a video of the “print reveal” (17seconds, silent):
Thanks to Evonne at East London Printmakers for filming me!
Here are the other 4 prints from this plate. They are all on a different, but similar paper: Tosa Washi from Shepherds, (ref: J632180)
The print was based on a sketch of Colechurch House last year. See this post:
Aficionados of 20th Century brutalist architecture need to hasten to appreciate Colechurch House. It is due for demolition and redevelopment. This month’s post in the marvellous “London Inheritance” site informed me about the planning application, so I rushed over there to draw a picture before the building became swathed in plastic. I drew this picture looking over the railings from London Bridge. This position commanded an excellent view of Colechurch House, but…
Here are more examples of the technique using a plate made from packaging material. I have written about the process here.
Here is another packaging print. This one shows Bridge ELR-XTD Structure 20 on Cornwall Road (N) between Charing Cross and Waterloo East, South East London. The road that leads off to the left is Sandell…
Huge brick arches carry the railway lines into Waterloo Station. Here is a view looking North up Great Suffolk Street. This is a packaging monoprint. It is an intaglio print from a “plate” made from…
The Boston Arms is in Tufnell Park, London, 178 Junction Road N19. I love the way this building presides over the junction. This is one of five prints I made with this plate made from…
Here is an image of The Museum of London, in the south west corner of the Barbican: The “plate” is made from a UHT milk carton. Here is the back of the used plate: Here…
Here’s another “packaging” monoprint. This was made using an empty box of tissues. This is a tower block on the South bank of the river Thames, seen from the North bank. That’s the river in…
Here is a “packaging” monoprint I made of the huts in Walberswick. The print is made using a discarded carton from a box of aspirin. It looks like this: The brown colour is shellac, a…
I am trying an experimental monoprint technique. The idea is to use packaging material to make intaglio “plates” which are then printed using an etching press. This is the first one. I printed it yesterday…
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Jane Sketching 