Down to Wapping

I received an email from a young designer who had found my drawings on Flickr and was enquiring about the possibility of using some of them in the redesign of  a menu for a London pub. Now as it happens, this pub is one of my favourite London pubs, so I was immediately hooked. The pub is The Town of Ramsgate, situated down in Wapping. When I was a boy this was a dodgy area that suburban folk like me would rarely visit. Back then it was warehouses, docks and ill-lit streets, with stone setts, and no easy transport links. Now it's very upmarket apartments in converted warehouses and there's a refurbished station for the newly refurbished London Overground.
The Town of Ramsgate dates back to at least the mid-sixteenth century. It is a riverside pub, right next to the Old Wapping Steps, an ancient access to the river itself, and the foreshore. It's an area of interesting history. These steps were the site of execution for those found guilty of piracy, whose bodies were hung on the gibbet until they had been covered by three tides. Captain Kidd is reputed to have been one of these unfortunates. The pub itself was the place where the London mob found and caught the notorious 'Hanging' Judge Jefferies who was trying to arrange a boat to flee his own trial.
If you're visiting London, I'd recommend a visit, just a little walk east of Tower Bridge.
I met the designer at the pub, and had time for a quick drawing from the steps across the river to Rotherhithe:

Rotherhithe from the top of Wapping Old Steps

The visit to Wapping, and my discussions with the designer, made me dig out the old  (2009ish) drawings that I hadn't looked at for a while. Here they are:

Wapping Old Steps, tide rising

Wapping High Street - Gun Wharves

Wapping church

Beside the Town of Ramsgate - alley leading to the Wapping Old Steps

Down to Wapping

2 pm, 22-09-2012, Geffrye Museum

19x19 cm, oil on panel, 2012

It rained on the day of painting at the Geffrye Museum so the garden pergola was of great help...

2 pm, 22-09-2012, Geffrye Museum

Sketching Jack's London: a sketchcrawl through the Ripper's city

'Ello London! Been a while since I was last there but I am going to be back home next month, visiting family, drawing things and popping over to Barcelona. I am looking forward to posting London sketches again, I do miss the place. So I thought it would be fun this time to organize a slightly different type of sketchcrawl, midweek in the afternoon to the evening, in the area made infamous by Jack the Ripper. The London of the Ripper's days is, thankfully, long gone, but has not completely vanished - old London still pokes through, and so I thought it might be fun to look for this lost London by using our sketchbooks. Or of course, you can draw the hipsters.

We'll meet at Whitechapel tube station at 3:00pm, and from there take in the High Street, Aldgate, Brick Lane and Spitalfields; latecomers are welcome (and I can let you know how to contact me). We will finally reconvene outside Hawksmoor's Christchurch Spitalfields, on Commercial St, where we will look at each others sketchbooks, and maybe pop into the that most 'Ripper' of pubs, the Ten Bells, for a pint.

WHEN: Wednesday July 17, 2013
START:  3:00pm, Whitechapel Tube Station
FINISH: 8:30pm, Christchurch Spitalfields 

This sketchcrawl is as always FREE and open to anyone with an interest in sketching, all ages and levels. I will provide hand-drawn maps with some vaguely relevant Jack the Ripper info.

Hope to see you there!
Pete Scully

Sketching Jack's London: a sketchcrawl through the Ripper's city

Houses of Parliament

James Hobbs, Houses of Parliament, London

My cycle ride to and from work takes me along the Albert Embankment, a quiet footpath/cycleway between St Thomas' Hospital and the river, which looks over to the Houses of Parliament. It's a relaxing section of my commute, and during the winter months not so busy. But now the sun has finally appeared, it's busier and the visitors posing for photos against the distinctive buildings on the opposite banks have swelled in number.
I stopped at a coffee stand near Lambeth Bridge to draw this on my way home this week. The sun was setting, people strolled by and boats chugged along, and London suddenly (and fleetingly) seemed like the most laid back place in the world. With the sun setting behind them, the parliament buildings became little more than a silhouette. It's what thick black pens are made for.

Houses of Parliament

Walkie-Talkie: new to London's skyline

London's drive for a distinctive skyline continues unabated. Following on from the Shard and the Gherkin, taking shape now are the Walkie-Talkie and the Cheesegrater. (The half-finished Helter Skelter is currently on hold, and the Scalpel is in the pipeline, as it were.)
The eyecatching feature of the Walkie-Talkie, at 20 Fenchurch Street, is that it curves outwards towards its top, so the highest floors are larger than those lower down, giving it the appearance of a giant telephone receiver popping up through the city's buildings. Designed by Rafael Viñoly, it is due to open in April 2014, and while most of us usually have to make do with the external appearances of towers in the financial district, this time there will be a "skygarden" open to the public. The plan is that it will be free, but require advanced booking. We'll see how that goes.
There's more about the Walkie-Talkie at www.james-hobbs.blogspot.com.

Walkie-Talkie: new to London's skyline

Spring at last!

After what seems like forever, the weather's finally getting warmer. My favourite time of year is when the blossom is out in full bloom; some trees are a little early this year but the rest are just starting to catch up. I couldn't resist getting outside today and drawing these trees near where I live, in Brockley - I meant to draw them last year but they blossom for such a brief period that I missed it last time around.

I've not had the opportunity to do much sketching outside lately, so it was nice to make the time, doubly so for being able to sit in the sun without worrying about taking a jacket!

I'll be trying to catch a few more blossom trees before it all gets blown away. Although he was referring to hawthorn blossom, which arrives slightly later, David Hockney's term 'Action Week' applies equally well to the cherry blossom; it doesn't last long, so it's worth making the time for a sketch!

Spring at last!

Green Lanes supermarket

Of course, I use supermarkets like everyone else, like this one up the road at Green Lanes in north London, but a minor war has waged closer to home where there a planning application has been made to build one in a street of small, quirky independent shops that give our locality its distinct flavour.
The campaign has already won concessions - there will now be no customer car park, for instance - but the planned store would still be out of scale and out of place. The big supermarkets seem to get whatever they want, and we the people shouldn't be steamrollered. But I can't help thinking that perhaps I'm just turning into a middle-aged, grumpy, Nimby.

Green Lanes supermarket