Jurassic afternoon stroll

Royal Brompton Incarceration Sketch tour 2012 (5 of 5)

Having signed my life away to the Foulis ward register and promised not to return drunk and be back in time for tea I hit the streets of Old London Town in search of adventure and Dinosaurs at the natural history museum where I was promised history would come alive by there website…

I have to day that the experience did take me back in time…to school day trips. There were lots of school kids running about making fun of the animatronics. Trying to find innuendo in all the items of the cleverly placed gift shop at the end of the dinosaur exhibit.

So the next sketch is the Dinosaur in the main hall of the Natural history museum.

Walking back to the hospital it occurred to me that there are a lot of mopeds in London and I stopped to draw them – completely missing the opportunity to draw the Row of Boris Battery Bikes.

I worked up the original sketch into the following finished painting.

On of the things I tried to find in the urban London jungle was hidden beauty – I think I found it in the run down garages in a side street off of Cromwell Road. I was particularly struck by the bright green doors at the end of the alley way.

 

Find more like these…

Royal Brompton Incarceration Sketch Tour 2012 – My room (1 of 5)

So in March 2012, almost a year after my last hospital admission,  I found myself in the Royal Brompton National Heart and Lung hospital for IV drugs to finally get rid of an infection that caused me immense problems in 2011. To pass the time I used the opportunity to sharpen up my sketching skills and to try and find something nice about London.

The main entrance of the Royal Brompton Hospital South Block where the specialist Cystic Fibrosis (CF) unit resides in the old Private wing. All CF patients get their own room with en-suite, TV, computer (if you want one), fridge and for some reason an exercise bike. What I like about the buildings in London is the reflections of trees that appear in the windows.

Below is a pencil sketch of my bed. As with most hospital beds it can be put into any position. It also gets stuck in any position which I found out to my cost on the first night when the end of the bed became dipped all night long and I kept slipping to the foot of the bed. I don;t like to disturb the nurses for such trivial matters so I woke in the morning scrunched up and achy.

I don’t know what interior decorator was in on the day they painted my room, but lime/yellow/brown walls seemed to be in. The slit window was my only source of light and also breeze in a room that got upto 36 degrees at night. The vinyl chairs in hospital are almost comfortable and yes, snot green in colour. NIce. Aids the recovery.

 

Coming up on the Royal Brompton Incarceration Tour…Albert Bridge…Why I drew the blinds in the Toilet…Motorcycles and buildings.

A touch of realism

The last two sketches of VW Camper vans have been stylised in my cartooning style. The front end of these images have been squarer and probably more like the original designs before the vans was put through a aerodynamic wind tunnel! This is a more traditional watercolour using layering of colour to build up the picture. I don’t often work this way preferring to use a direct painting method and mixing the colours I need on the palette and merging them on the paper. The layering technique requires more patience and drying times. I usually start a watercolour like this in the week when I haven’t much time this forces me to concentrate on each layer and to plan each brush stroke. Often to good effect.

Previous VW Camper Vans – Orange and Green

Work in Progress…

I am currently working on some ideas for a book illustration and finishing the urban sketches that I did while I was in hospital. More about that next time…

Green VW Camper Van Sketch

Continuing with my obsessional VW Camper Van sketching - this is a green one.

What is the fascination with VW Camper Vans? What drives a man to spend his hard earned cash on a car that needs constant attention and coaxing into life in the morning? Is it the idea of freedom? Could I be a secret surfer dude? Probably not as I can surf. Or swim. Is it the nomadic life style or maybe the hippie in me trying to escape? Maybe I like to think of myself as a wananbe cook…

On a much simpler level I think I need to build up my arm muscles in a car with no power steering and tighten my leg muscles on unassisted brakes. And I actually like the shape and style of a vehicle that was produced not to be aerodynamic but was designed using the convenience of an existing car and its production line.

 

Other sketches in this series…

Obsession

I have been sketching VW Campers over the past weeks. I love the idea of being able to just drive away with your own private accommodation and to pull up in a layby – Of Course this is almost impossible these days with all the double yellow line parking restrictions around. I watched a programme on the Caravan channel where a woman was interviewed as she had owned caravans all her life from the 1940s onwards. She recalled being able to take a caravan to Paris and being able to park up along side the Eiffel Tower. Imagine doing that today!

In the same programme they also showed how a modern insulated caravan was made out of sheets of laminated steel and polystyrene giving a level of comfort and security of a modern day apartment building. What a striking difference to a battered VW single layer Steel constructed VW Van. And what a sad person I am for being riveted to the show.

It is my dream to own one of these vans one day with all its faults, its engine failures, its damp morning window dripping interior…My other half has given me permission to save for one. She is saving for the hotel she will be staying in!