Cityscape – Jane Sketching

St Martin-in-the-Fields, WC2

On the way back from a visit to the West End, I passed St-Martin-in-the-Fields, standing out against the cold sky.

St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. Sketched 2nd Dec 2022, in sketchbook 12

The statue in the foreground, left, is the Edith Cavell Memorial, seen from the back. Edith Cavell (1865-1915) was a British nurse. In German-occupied Belgium, guided by her principles of humanity and her Christian faith, she provided medical care to soldiers irrespective of which side they were on. She was executed by a German firing squad 1915, because she had helped Belgian, British and French soldiers to escape the German occupation and reach Britain. Her grave is in Norwich Cathedral.

I sketched standing on a corner of the Charing Cross road, see map above. This turned out to be a very noisy location. The National Portrait Gallery is being refurbished and there was continuous drilling and banging. Buses and cars ground their gears, and thundered past, rushing through the traffic lights to shriek to a halt at the next junction.

But St-Martin-in-the-Fields rose above it all. The inscriptions which faced me on the Edith Cavell Memorial were: “Determination”, “Fortitude”.

Great Suffolk Street, Railway arch

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 a milk carton. Here is the plate:

I’ve described the process in this blog post: Print plates made of packag ing. The basic method is to use the shiny metallic surface inside the carton. I cut out the shapes I want and peel back the shiny surface to reveal a rougher surface which takes the ink. The yellow colour you see on the plate is shellac, a varnish that I paint on to make the plate last a little longer.

The plates are quite fragile, and can only make a limited number of prints. Here is number 6:

Great Suffolk Street railway arch, monoprint #6 of 6. Printed image size 12″ x 9″. On Agawami Washi Kitakata Japanese paper, 20″ x1 4″

I made all the prints on the Henderson press at East London Printmakers, Stepney. I used Chabonnel F66 traditional oil-based etching ink.

Sketching in Norwich

Norwich describes itself as “A Fine City”. Indeed it is. The city centre streets are clean, car-free, and lined with a huge variety of shops, restaurants, and service providers such as key-cutters and barbers. All very interesting. And there’s a lovely river too.

The City of Norwich website tells me: “On 17 July 1967, London Street became the first shopping street in the UK to be pedestrianised. It started a revolution that saw people given priority over traffic in city centres.”

This building stands in London Street, at the junction with St Andrews Hill. It was designed by FCR Palmer for the National Provincial Bank, and was completed in 1925 [1]. The National Provincial became NatWest after a series of mergers and takeovers. NatWest moved out in 2017.

“Cosy Club” 45-51 London St, Norwich NR2 1AG, 19th June 2022 12:15, in Sketchbook 12

I also sketched Norwich Cathedral, from the Cathedral Close.

Norwich Cathedral from the Cathedral Close 40min sketch, 11:15 19th June 2022, Sketchbook 12

Certainly a fine city, and one to which I hope to return.

Note 1: History of the London Street bank building from the Norwich Society website: https://www.thenorwichsociety.org.uk/explore-norwich/natwest-building-on-london-street

Spitalfields E1 from ChristChurch

I joined a sketching friend for a stroll around Spitalfields. We had coffee at the Cafe in the Crypt of Christchurch Spitalfields, and then sat at the tables outside and sketched the view.

Here is my sketch:

Spitalfields Market E1 from ChristChurch, 7″ square in Sketchbook 12. 1st June 2022

Behind the red-bricked buildings of the Market, you can see the office and residential tower blocks along Bishopsgate. “Principal Tower” in the one to the right.

Here are some on-location photos and a picture of the sketchbook.

Thankyou to the talented artist LA for your company and inspiration on this expedition. It’s fun to sketch together!

Urban watercolour studies

Usually, I use the “pen-and-wash” technique. I draw an urban scene in waterproof pen and then add the wash. This method is fast, and useful for outdoor work on location. Most of my urban sketching work uses this technique. Here’s are example:

I wanted to try a “straight-to-watercolour” method. This involves looking at the scene differently. To go straight to watercolour I need to learn to see “shapes” rather than “lines”. I practised this with these three watercolours:

I worked learning from demonstrations by Matthew White . I hope to incorporate elements of this practice into my own work.

Bristol – view from Nova Scotia Place BS1

Wandering in a warm Bristol evening I rounded the harbour and found myself in Nova Scotia Place. This is a secluded domain, enclosed by water, and main roads. There is a pub, the Nova Scotia Hotel. People occupied the outdoor tables, with pints and conversation. I walked onto the small promontory and looked at the little cottages opposite.

Sketching at Nova Scotia Place, 22nd March 2022, 6pm

The warm evening became rather cooler. I packed up when I’d done the pen sketch. The bench that I had been using was a memorial bench:

In memory of Alan Helliwell (German) remembered by family, freinds and work colleagues of Underfall Yard who died too early. 7/2/1961 – 03/10/2009 after several near misses.

Later I put on some colour:

“TS Adventure Sea Cadets” cottages seen from Nova Scotia Place

Two boys

Here’s a print I made at East London Printmakers last week.

I wanted to show how concentrated these people were, immersed in what they were doing, sitting on the wall.

It is printed on Fabriano Unica paper, using Charbonnel F66 traditional etching ink. Here is the copper plate:

The plate is made with hard ground lines, soft ground patterns, and three aquatint sessions.

I made some variations of this print. Here is one, using chine-collé.

Sometimes in the printing process, magic happens. As I was packing for this print session, searching for paper, tissues, gloves, and other printing essentials, I encountered a thick envelope labelled “Old Prints”. I pulled out one of those, a street scene, with a vague idea of overprinting it. It is a drypoint I made years ago. The vague idea turned into a plan, and then a print. Here it is. I was really pleased with how it came out. The chine-collé is also a leftover from another project.

Two boys and street, combined image size about A5. Etching, drypoint and chine-collé.

Boston Arms – relief print

This image is a by-product of the packaging print plate of the Boston Arms.

After I had cut out the packaging print plate of the Boston Arms, I was left with the “negative”: the top part of the plate. As it was on its way to the bin, I realised that I could use this to make another picture. So I retrieved it, and made this plate:

Relief plate*: top half is made of a biscuit packet. The bottom half of the biscuit packet was used to make the packaging print – see this post

I added a few people. This is a pub, so these are some people on their way to the pub.

I used this cardboard plate to make some prints. I painted it with shellac, to make it stronger.

Here are the prints, made on the Albion press at East London Printmakers. The prints are”collographs”: relief* prints.

I made the prints on top of some experimental monoprints made last year.

*A “relief” plate is one in which the ink is rolled onto the raised part of the plate. The raised parts print dark. A potato print, a lino print, woodcut or an ordinary rubber stamp is a relief print. This is by contrast to an “intaglio” print, in which the ink is wiped into the indentations and into engraved lines on the plate. The raised parts print light, and the lower parts print dark. My etchings and packaging prints are intaglio prints.

Train journey to Newcastle

Before the journey, I printed patterns on the pages. Many of these drawings are done on the train.

I did drawings in a “T raveler’s Company” spiral bound notebook.

39 Clerkenwell Road, EC1

Here is a row of shops on the Clerkenwell Road.

Roni’s Café, 39 Clerkenwell Road, 15th Feb 2022, 10″ x 8″ in Sketchbook 11

In the centre of the picture is Roni’s Café, where I sheltered to finish my drawing of 84 Clerkenwell Road.

My idea was to draw the view looking West along the Clerkenwell Road, from number 84. By the time I reached the spot, the rain was falling heavily. I spotted a large window. The people inside kindly agreed to host me for 45 minutes while I sketched my lines. Then I went out into the rain. I finished the picture at my desk.