Friday 20 May 2011

On yer bike!

So, it was tuesday evening and I had an hour to kill round Victoria way after work, and I headed out to find somewhere for a nice (decaf) coffee and some sketching. After proving WRONG the theory that in London you're never more than 6 metres from a Cafe Nero, I decided to settle for Starbucks only to discover it was a miniscule one with NO COMFY SEATS! Booo! Then I spied some wicker chairs and tables out the back, so taking my vanilla ("not too much syrup it can be a bit too sweet") latte with me and ignoring the voice in my head saying "Er you've got a horrible cold and sore throat, stay inside!!" I sat myself down, looked up and saw I had a perfect view of Westminster Cathedral. And... decided the viewpoint was a bit too difficult, so drew this lovely Boris Bike instead. Of course, it hadn't occurred to me that somebody might actually want to hire a hire bike, so there were a few hairy moments when people came over, fiddled about with keys and cards and things and I immediately speeded up my sketching, but fortunately it seemed there was something wrong with it so my subject was left be for me to finish. Result! And by the way, the left handlebar is higher than the right one in real life, not just my measurements gone wrong. No idea why.

South Downs Scavenger Hunt!

Location: South Downs, near Brighton
Date: 23/04/11
Mission: Porter family walk
Findings of mission: One red admiral butterfly (dead). One sunburnt neck (mine). Lots of just-too-big-to-still-be-cute lambs. That my Mum's sandwiches (speciality: the "little bit of everything that's in the fridge" one) are still the best.

Here's a bit of pencil for a change. I thought such a delicate subject deserved a more delicate medium than my usual pilot pen on a bit of scrap paper.