The Theatre of the Thames

January 19, 2026January 19, 2026Leave a comment

More from last August in London. It was a lovely day down by the Thames, one of those perfect weather days, not too hot, nice river breeze, sunshine with a few wispy clouds. We were going to have a family day out down here, watch some theatre, eat some dinner, walk down the river. I came down a little early to get some sketching in, and drew the view over to St. Paul’s and the City. That skyline has changed so much since I left 20 years ago. I had bought tickets for The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, in the seated areas rather than standing in the groundling spots, and I got the comfy cushion too. Those seats are a lot more than the standing sections, but I thought, well it’s important to support the London theatre scene. I did donate to the Globe during the pandemic when they were closed, they were posting full performances online and they were fantastic. To my shame I had never been to see a play at the Globe, in all those years since it opened. I’ve been to the gift shop loads of times. I remember when the Globe opened, as I was a drama student at Queen Mary at the time, and I wondered if it would get confusing that there is another theatre called The Globe down by Shaftesbury Avenue (that was subsequently renamed The Gielgud). Our ‘Places In Performance’ class taught by Richard Schoch (he is a published Shakespeare expert; he also recently wrote a very well-received book about Sondheim) did a tour of the new Globe, and some of the faculty at Queen Mary were part of the Friends of the Globe. I remember trying to walk there from north of the River and thinking, we could really use another bridge here you know, a pedestrian bridge nearby to St. Paul’s; a couple of years later we got the Millennium Bridge. I remember the tour, learning about Sam Wanamaker, the American actor (and Zoë Wanamaker’s father) who was the driving force behind the idea to rebuild the Globe right here in Southwark, but who did not live to see it finished. Yet in the twenty-seven years since my visit, I never ever saw a play there, until now!

I selected our seats carefully, considering how the sun might move in this afternoon play, but obviously I completely miscalculated that because for the first half we were baking in the sun. Note to self, evening performances next time! It was great though, the performances were fun, I couldn’t tell if everyone was really following it but the costumes and physical humour was top notch. I did try a quick sketch before the show started (above) but didn’t draw during the show. I would like to do a proper sketch of the Globe’s interior some day, I’ve drawn the outside as few times.

This was not the only theatre I saw while I was back – I booked tickets to see My Neighbour Totoro at the Gillian Lynne Theatre on Drury Lane, a stage adaptation of one of our favourite animated Miyazaki films. It was without doubt one of the best things I have ever seen, so good that I immediately booked tickets to see it again when I got home. It was that good, especially how all the live music was performed. Looking at the program I realized that the director was Phelim McDermott, who co-founded Improbable Theatre Co, and I’d forgotten that name until that moment. I had seen his production of Shockheaded Peter many years ago at the Battersea Arts Centre, in about 2000 or 2001, and it erupted my imagination; some of the style of Totoro rang a bell with me. There were some elements of my own production of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in Aix-en-Provence in 2002 that were definitely inspired by that show. As a former drama student I don’t actually go to the theatre very much at all, so to go several times in one trip felt like making up for lost time. I even bought cheap five quid groundling tickets for Twelfth Night at the Globe a couple of weeks later, after my trip to Poland and Berlin, but ended up going sketching instead. I must go and see some more theatre though, and make more of an effort to see more in London.

Sometimes the best theatre is out on the streets though eh. Ooh, cheesy and not actually true. No, the streets is not the same as the theatre which takes a lot of effort in writing, acting, costumes, lighting, front of house; no, just standing on the streets and looking at things is not the same. The view above is quite a theatrical backdrop though. But nevertheless I do just that, I like to fill the sketchbooks with the stories of the world I see, and that is all my own story, my own theatre. I have often thought about the interaction between theatre/performance and urban sketching. As urban sketchers we ourselves might not see ourselves as performers but in a real sense we are. The act of standing on a street and observing makes us the ‘watched by C’ part of the Peter Brook equation of “A plays B watched by C” (that’s a very rough and probably inaccurate summarizing of his ‘Empty Space’ idea but I learned this in the first term of my drama degree, and that was in 1997 and I barely understood anything about theatre then, and probably even less now, but this ideas we discussed stuck with me, that everything can be boiled down to performance in some way). If I decide to observe and describe the scene in my sketchbook, I then become both observer (C) and performer (A), while the scene I am sketching becomes (B), the thing I am performing. I am starting to see why we drank so much at university now. That confusing calculus aside, the urban sketcher themself becomes a performer and attracts observation from people passing by, or sketched by other sketchers (A performs B watched by C who becomes A making the original A become B who is also performing another B which is also A; I’m surprised I didn’t get a D for that class). So we urban sketchers are performing in the act of drawing, and also in the act of sharing online with our fellow sketchers, who are the audience who then hopefully become inspired to keep sketching themselves. The thing I think about most though is that urban sketching, perhaps unlike more fine art styles, is an accessible art form that people feel more of a connection to when they see it. This is the everyday world as seen by the people living in it, who draw it because it’s there with the tools they have. I was always more interested in the basic idea of theatre as a storytelling device, one that anyone can take part in. I appreciate amazing acting, and the incredible hard work that goes into it, but it never interested me personally as much as the storytelling itself. We learned about interactive and forum theatre and the work of Boal, and I was very interested in Brecht. I look through the hundreds of posts each day that my fellow urban sketchers across the world are posting (that is, as much as the dreaded algorithms allow), and in very small and very big ways we are telling the story of the world we live in. It’s not necessarily in big determined narratives or five act structured entertainments but it’s all theatre of a sort, storytelling is at the heart of it, even if you don’t realize you are telling a story. I think a lot about this and try to get this small idea across in the sketchcrawls I organize. As with the interactive theatre work we did it’s all about accessibility and inclusiveness (in those first sketching events I ran, I brought along extra art materials and mini sketchbooks for people who saw us and might want to start sketching themselves) and what tools you have to tell your story with, that’s how I approach urban sketching. Or maybe, as with so many things with me, it’s just another excuse to draw.

The scene above, of the 2025 version of the City of London skyline, was drawn before the sun started setting, stood by Hay’s Galleria while people around me enjoyed an evening pint by the Thames. That skyline has changed so much in the 20 years since I left my home city, it’s unrecognizable. After this, my wife and I decided to walk down the Thames, and we walked and walked all the way to Charing Cross Station, for some reason. It was a really long way, and the South Bank was busy, really busy. London’s great, the Thames is my favourite, but it can be long and exhausting, just like some Shakespeare. Or some blog posts.

Richmond, by the river

January 17, 2026January 16, 2026Leave a comment

We met up with my friend Simon who was back visiting from Dublin, and took the Overground train down to Richmond. I was there last in the previous winter with Simon exploring the old pus and riverside walks, and wanted to go back in the summertime with the family. Richmond is London, but I hardly ever go there, it’s quite far but always worth a visit. I drew the White Cross pub, above, which we never went into but I know if it from videos I’ve seen online, apparently when the river tides get a bit high it cuts off the exits, and they lend you wellington boots to wade through to higher ground. I’d probably just stay in the pub. There are a lot of ducks around here, not surprising really. We had a nice refreshing drink at the cafe on one of the boats floating on the Thames. It didn’t go anywhere, but it was nice to sit and catch up. I sketched Simon (below; I was worried I was making him look like Pep Guardiola or Enzo Maresca, but it looked more like him this time, I always struggle sketching him for some reason). I was starting my new small Stillman & Birn brown paper sketchbook which would be my ‘people sketching’ book for this trip, and indeed I would get a lot of use from it in Poland at the symposium, Simon was a good page 1 subject. Some ladies were watching me sketch and asked if I could draw them, I respectfully declined (as they weren’t all that respectful themselves).

I tried to draw Richmond Bridge while sat on the boat but only got as far as outlines, I ended up finishing the rest off later on. The bridge dates from the 18th century.

On the train back into central London I sketched a little more in that brown book, this time using some interesting Derwent ‘Inktense’ paints I had picked up, fun to test those out, I don’t think I’ve used them since. I drew my wife, and also drew Simon again looking very different this time. Outside, it started raining, and got very heavy by the time we reached central London. Nothing more English than a mid-August downpour.

at the holly bush, hampstead

January 16, 2026Leave a comment

I should probably have included this in the last post about Hampstead but I didn’t, and it was drawn on a different day. A short but steep walk up Holly Hill from the tube station is the Holly Bush pub, tucked away in a narrow lane called Holly Mount. It’s a holly good pub too. This is definitely in ‘cute American-targeted movie set in Hampstead’ territory, and ‘random celebrity sighting’ land, but I like that it’s a little bit hidden and takes an effort to get to. I’ve wanted to sketch here for a while (I should draw the inside sometime) so one Saturday I was heading into London when I stopped off in Hampstead to buy some art supplies at Cass, sketch the Holly Bush, then met up with my friend who happened to be having lunch nearby with his girlfriend, we had a pint and a chat here. I used to enjoy spending the odd Saturday lunchtime down this way, another mate of mine used to live down here when I was in my twenties, though we would like going to the Haverstock down in Belsize Park, when the football was on. I miss this about London, even though it’s always so busy and crowded and expensive there are little places of relative calm and charm, and a Saturday afternoon pint and chat in an old pub can be so totally relaxing. After I left my friends I got back on the tube and headed into central London to explore some other areas, I’ll post those later. The Holly Bush is a Fullers pub which means they do London Pride, I always liked that beer, room temperature, nothing fancy. I got it once at a British themed pub in California and it was served cold, which was very odd (but tasted fine). As I sketched outside, a family of Americans all decked out in Tottenham Hotspur gear started to talk with me, they were getting ready to head over to N17 to watch Spurs play, which made me quite jealous as I wish I’d done that too (but couldn’t get a ticket). This was the day we beat Burnley 3-0 in an early season romp where we all thought, oh yes life will be very good under Thomas Frank, this season is going to be entertaining and full of wins. Spoiler alert: yeah not so much.

an afternoon in hampstead

January 13, 2026January 12, 2026Leave a comment

From Hemel Hemstead to regular old Hampstead, a place I’m a lot more familiar with. It was a nice summery day, and we went a few stops down the old Northern Line to look around. I did a quick sketch of Heath Street looking uphill past the tube station. These quick pen sketches while I’m waiting for people are often my favourite types, getting as much in as quickly as I can in a busy city. I love taking my time but dashing with a fountain pen is very liberating. I picked up a new book in Primrose Hill this summer by the artist David Gentleman called ‘Lessons for Young Artists’, a signed copy full of simple but powerful advice. I know, I know I’m not a ‘Young Artist’, but hey I’m significantly younger than David Gentleman so comparatively I still qualify. I’m a huge fan of David Gentleman; his book ‘London You’re Beautiful has pride of place on my shelf, and I look through it more than most books. I don’t often draw in a looser sketching style like he does, but when I do it feels like I’ve caught a bit more of how I really see London. It’s not static or linear, but organic and full of often incompatible personalities. London annoys me, but I can’t get enough of it, I don’t live there any more but my head is always in its space. The tree below, a huge London Plane in the shaded backstreet of Oriel Place is one of my favourite trees in London. We sat for a while eating our crepes, I did a quick sketch.

We walked down to St. John-at-Hampstead church down Church Row, looked about for a bit, then I stayed down and did some sketching, drawing the tall house next to the graveyard that comes right out of an old novel. This street has had a lot of celebrated residents. H.G. Wells (he of the Time Machine) lived at number 17; Giles Gilbert Scott (he of the red phone box) lived number 26. Peter Cook also lived at number 17 in the 1960s, and would write here with Dudley Moore, as well as hosting parties. Famous scientist Henry Cavendish lived at number 34; he discovered Hydrogen, though he called it ‘inflammable air’ (he got that right). The most well-known resident of number 12, which I drew, was a 19th century Christian Socialist called Edward Vansittart-Neale, who opened the first co-op store in London. Everybody needs good neighbours. It’s very picture-book Hampstead around here, the sort of place a main character walks down in a soppy movie before bumping into a rich American out walking a small dog and spilling their big coffee before opening a small antiques shop or bookstore and we’ve all seen those films. It’s nice down here though. I drew the graveyard a couple of years ago.

st.mary’s in hemel

January 12, 20261 Comment

This is St. Mary’s Church in Hemel Hempstead, which is a town in Hertfordshire outside of London which I had never been to before. I was up in Stevenage at my younger sister’s, and was planning to meet my friend James in the evening. Usually when we meet he comes into central London and gets the train back from there, this time I suggested we meet in Hemel and I finally get to see where he lives now (he’s from Watford originally, a little bit closer to London). We had some curry and beers in the old town, nice to catch up, and I stayed over at the house he and his wife own, I last saw them both in California last March when they were visiting San Francisco for their anniversary. Next morning I was up early, and before heading back to London on the train (a longer journey than I realized! Hertfordshire is bigger than I thought, and I grew up right next to it not thinking about it much), I walked back up to the old town and drew the churchyard we had walked through the evening before. St. Mary’s is a really old church, this building dating back to the middle of the twelfth century. There was likely a church here for much longer than that, it may even be where King Offa of Mercia was buried, though his grave is now lost. King Offa, there was someone who couldn’t be refused. Although in retrospect, cheap puns on his name probably should be. The tall pointing spire, too big to be included in this format of sketchbook, was added in the fourteenth century and for a long time was the tallest in Europe. The church contains a memorial to the 18th century surgeon and anatomist Sir Astley Cooper, who lived nearby. Unlike many disreputable anatomists of that time who employed body-snatchers or ‘resurrection men’, Sir Astley’s catchphrase was ‘Never gonna dig you up’. It was a really peaceful churchyard, next to a narrow park, and joggers and morning strollers passed me by as I sketched, only mildly hungover from the previous night’s trip to the local pub. Hemel Hempstead is commuter country, a place where people move out to from London while rebounding back in and out to work, like many other towns within an hour or so of the city. It’s bigger than I thought, with this enormous roundabout-within-a-roundabout system, nicknamed the ‘Magic Roundabout’, that functions like an Agatha Christie novel, full of twists and turns and red herrings, maybe a body in the library. There’s the old town, which had some interesting old buildings, and the New Town, a post-war development with a pedestrianized shopping district that reminds me of other such towns in England, with their 1950s concrete and shallow waterways, and made me feel oddly nostalgic for places I’ve never even lived. I didn’t spend much time here but it was quite nice overall, wish I’d sketched a bit more but glad I drew the old church.

Burnt Oak Broadway, corner of Stag Lane

January 10, 2026January 9, 2026Leave a comment

Here are a couple of drawings from Burnt Oak that I did last summer. Specifically, Burnt Oak Broadway. I mentioned in a previous post that Edgware High Street was part of Edgware Road which is part of Watling Street which was an ancient Roman Road running from Dover to Wroxeter, passing through London and running in a north-westerly straight line, give or take. The A5, in modern parlance. It was probably a route before the Romans came as well, used by the ancient Britons, and we don’t really know what it was called before the Saxons migrated here from mainland Europe and called it Watling Street, or Wæcelinga Stræt, after a tribe that lived around what we call St. Alban’s now, the people of Waecla, or Waeclingas. Watling Street also marked the border between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms under Alfred and the Viking-ruled territory of the Danelaw. Our side of the street, in Burnt Oak, that would have been in the Danelaw, which explains a few things about us (what’s the Old Norse for “yeah what you looking at, come on then”), with our longships and our Odins, while those posh Saxons lived over there in Harrow with their burnt cakes and their Wodens. Burnt Oak is where I was born and grew up, and supposedly has its origins in Roman times (what’s the Latin for “yeah what you looking at, come on then”) and refers to the old practice of burning an oak tree to mark boundaries (a simple sign would have probably been easier). When we say we are going ‘Up the Watling’ we are not referring to Watling Street, but to Watling Avenue which turns downhill from here. This part of Watling Street, Edgware Road, the A5 whatever, is called Burnt Oak Broadway. Hey this is Britain, we can have as many names for things as we bloody well like. One summer morning I got up and walked up to the top of the Watling, and stood on Burnt Oak Broadway looking over at the junction with Stag Lane. This junction is ancient, and you could grow ancient waiting for the bloody lights to change, and is probably named after the Bald Faced Stag pub which would have been to my left on the Broadway before it was closed about a decade or so ago. All the old pubs are closing, there will be none left soon. There are none left around here. That’s a different story. The large building on the left with the clock on top has stood there for many years, and reminds me so much of being a kid. It was a department store for a long time, but it reminds me of my Nan, because I would see it when going to her flat, which was just across the street further down the Broadway, or in the Stag, where she would spend most days. Across the junction on Stag Lane, that building painted an ugly blue is now an amusement arcade and casino called Silvertime, well I say amusement, who really knows. It’s in the former location of Nat West Bank, and this was my branch when I opened my first account as a kid, do you remember those porcelain NatWest piggy banks? My mum or dad still have them somewhere I think. Sad to see the bank closed. There used to be two NatWests in Burnt Oak, both closed now. There is another blue Silvertime across the street, also located in a closed down bank, where the old Midland Bank (later HSBC) used to be. Funny how these casinos open in old banks. I really don’t know why they have to paint these old buildings bright blue though. Next door is a Romanian food market, and a restaurant next to that. There’s a sizeable Romanian community in Burnt Oak now, that was not there when I left. My mum did have a friend from Romania when I was a kid, she used to work with him and we would often meet with his family. He had escaped Ceaucescu’s brutal regime in the 70s or 80s (hiding in a box, apparently), and was able to bring his family over after that. I still remember when the communist regimes fell, and he was finally able to go and visit his homeland. Last time I saw him he had opened a bakery on Burnt Oak Broadway, about seventeen years ago just down from here, and he gave me a massive plate of pastries, but that’s gone now. Everything changes, you can’t stop it, but we’ve all got our stories in these places.

Further down the Broadway, opposite the flats where my Nan used to lived (when she wasn’t in the Stag), I stood under a tree and drew this on the morning before heading off on my trip to Poland. This building is in a sorry state, disused, boarded up. When I was younger it was a Mecca bingo hall, but closed more than ten years ago. We love leaving this big old buildings empty and derelict. Years ago it used to be a cinema, when my Mum was a girl, the Savoy, she remembers seeing Calamity Jane there as a kid. Someone contacted me to let me know that there are proposals to convert this space and the spaces next to it into new flats, with concerns about some more local history being lost to the march of redevelopment. Luxury flats are probably better than bright blue ‘adult gaming centres’, but London is at the mercy of big corporate property developers these days. Communities would be nice, and they still exist, if you want it. Pubs would be nice, and newsagents, and a post office, and banks with humans, and a cafe where you can get a nice cup of tea. It’s funny, I like drawing these big old buildings whose presence echoes so much through not only my own history but that of my family and local friends, yet I think I only ever stepped foot in here once in my life, when it was a bingo hall when I was a kid, and I am probably misremembering that for somewhere else. Memory and Nostalgia are funny things. I was considering writing a book called “I Remember When Things Used To Be A Little Bit Different From How They Are Now” but things keep changing and changing again. So I will just keep on drawing what I see, until it does. These were the only sketches I did in Burnt Oak in this trip but I did more around London, stay tuned for those, they won’t all come with maudlin’ nostalgic stories, but most will.

back to the railway hotel

January 9, 2026Leave a comment

The Railway Hotel in Edgware, at the end of the Northern Line in London, has been lying empty and boarded up for a long time now. It closed in 2006, twenty years ago, and it’s been in a sorry state ever since, even suffering a fire in 2016, which sometimes happens to old buildings that are in the way of new buildings. However it did survive, though it has spent the past decade with nobody sure of what will happen to it. However recent plans have been proposed to finally renovate the site as part of the lerger ‘Forumside’ development of the land behind it. That’s what it’s being called, Forumside, and this is that big plan to build tall towers with hundreds of flats, changing the look of Edgware, but the plan is that they will be keeping the Railway Hotel and restoring it, so we can still enjoy some older buildings in Edgware. Not that I live there any more, but I care what happens to this venerable old building, that goes back all the way to 1936. Ok yeah that’s not that old, you don’t have the ghost of Dick Turpin riding through here, but they don’t make pretend-old buildings like this any more. I stood in the graveyard of St. Margaret’s Church across Station Road, careful not to stand on anyone’s graves (I’m not superstitious, except when I definitely am, but I’m always careful where I tread in a graveyard). Those boarded up windows are sad, but it saves cleaning the windows. I love those big old chimneys. I remember going into the railway, it was a lovely pub and friendlier than most, and we had a nice dinner up there for my mate Terry’s 18th birthday (I remember his grandad making us laugh with his funny sayings). I drew the view below on the same day as the first sketch, just from a different angle so you can see more of the adjoining side building. It was that sky though, I loved drawing that last summer. Unfortunately that newer blend of Moleskine watercolour paper is not good at all and makes every wash look like it’s on textured bogroll, all those little bumps, this is why I have now stopped using the Moleskines, until they improve. I’m using Hahnemuhle now, which is much better.

I actually did draw it back in 2015 and wrote about it in a blog post ten years ago, where I lamented the ‘End of the Railway’ and noted that it was not a listed building. That’s what I was told at the time, but maybe it was listed (in 2003); it was added to the ‘Historic England’s At Risk Register‘ in 2013. Here’s the sketch I did in 2015. By the way if you’re on Facebook and talking about this building and you use my sketch, please ask me first, ffs. I drew that on Christmas Eve, I remember it, I think it was the last Christmas we even spent in London. We used to go over every other year for Christmas, but haven’t done so in years now. I’ve been over in November and December, but not for the big day itself. I remember going up to Edgware, last bit of shopping at M&S and WH Smiths the Boardwalk (both gone from there now), drawing the Railway Hotel, and then getting the 305 bus (a route which no longer exists) back to Burnt Oak to get ready for Father Christmas. I don’t think it snowed that year.

You can learn about the new plans for this building at: https://edgwarerailwayhotel.co.uk/. They have an artist impression of what it might look like (and I swear it looks like I’m sitting on a bench drawing it). Whatever ends up happening, I hope the Railway reopens with a new life, and these big mock Tudor triangles and tall chimneys stay on the Station Road for another century. Well ok they haven’t been here for one full century yet but you know what I mean. Stay tuned for more sketches from my big Summer 2025 trip back to Europe. These are the last of the Edgware ones, but there are a couple more from Burnt Oak to come.

highwaymen on the high street

January 5, 2026Leave a comment

Time to get on with 2025, because 2026 isn’t starting too well. So, let’s go back to last summer and my trip back across The Pond. Just around the corner from where we left off (“Edgware and its Ghosts“) is one of the oldest buildings in Edgware, having been here long before it became part of Metroland. If there are ghosts anywhere in Edgware, surely it would be here. This row next to the old War Memorial on the High Street, around the corner from Station Road, are some of the oldest buildings still standing in Edgware. These date from about the 16th Century, others on the row from the 17th and 18th. Hundreds of years ago this was a coaching inn on the Edgware Road, which is the old Roman road of Watling Street that runs north-west out of London in a straight line across England. Imagine the people that would have stayed here. One of them was reputedly the infamous highwayman Dick Turpin. I don’t know if he stayed there, but Turpin and his gang of thugs (the Essex Gang) did commit an extremely violent robbery at the nearby farm of Joseph Lawrence in 1735. I won’t recount the whole story, but Turpin was a horrible thug, not a dashing hunk on a horse. Still, we grew up knowing that Turpin spent time around here. Turpin time. I had a Dick Turpin ‘Wanted’ poster on my bedroom wall when I was a kid that I got on a school trip to York, where he was hanged. His ghost probably isn’t floating around here anywhere, in a tricorn hat and holding one of those flintlock pistols, but let’s say it is, what the hell. Highwaymen were a big thing back in the 18th century weren’t they, and they all had similar-themed names, your Dick Turpin, your Tom Cox, your Willy Plunkett, and there was also James Hind whose middle initial may have been B. These days the old coaching inn is a restaurant called Himalayan Spice. So it went from ‘ave a rest’ to ‘Everest’. They went from ‘mounting horses’ to just ‘mountains’. Sorry, these puns are much, much worse than usual. Wait I have one more, they went from ‘Stand and Deliver’ to ‘Sit-Down or Take-Away’. That’s not bad, I might use that if I ever eat there. I didn’t eat there this time, but did poke my head in the door, it’s still pretty historic looking inside (and the food smelled really good). I haven’t been in there since I was a kid. Back then it was an Italian restaurant, the Vecchia Romagna, and my mum actually worked there. This building will always be the Vecchia Romagna to me. I’m amazed I have never sketched it before now. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a waiter like the ones my mum worked with, tea-towel over the arm, white shirt, handful of plates. Then I got old enough to actually do that, and that’s how I earned my spending money as a teenager. Not here though, but in many places around Edgware and across north-west London, waitering jobs, serving tea and wine, laying tables, washing up. Even though I’m still alive, there’s probably a ghost of me floating around Edgware carrying a small teapot and a platter of vol-au-vents. Or a sketchbook, there will definitely be a ghost of me holding a sketchbook on the streets of Davis. Since ghosts don’t really exist I say you can choose to have loads of them in all different places, even when you are alive.

Hopefully I get around to posting the rest of my sketches from Edgware and Burnt Oak soon, because I have some more. This is a really interesting document from 2013 on the London Borough of Harrow website (because this side of the street is in Harrow, not Barnet), which goes into the history of this part of Edgware and focuses on a lot of the historic architectural details of these old buildings. I really should get around to sketching Whitchurch Lane, just around the corner from here, that has some really interesting old buildings. Next time.

that was the 2025 that was

January 4, 20261 Comment

Well, 2025 finally finished. That was exhausting, even more than expected. I expect 2026 will be more so. So far it is, but the new year doesn’t really begin until the decorations come down, or the new sketchbook is started. I tried hard to close out my current sketchbook by December 31st, but in the end I had a few pages left, I should easily finish that by December 6th. As for the amount of sketching I did in 2025, let’s just say it was more than more-than-ever. Perhaps there is a correlation between burying myself in my sketchbooks and the state of the world, yes I think there is. 2025 was a very bust year for my sketchbooks though, as you can see from above – the annual sketch list for 2025 this time split into two columns. It’s not a very scientific way of tracking my sketches (and I can really see how the rows started getting slightly bigger or smaller at points, when I thought they were all the same size, having used the same grid for more than a decade). However if you look at the chart below, where I show my annual sketching output since 2013 (again, not going back to do the years before then, that was just when I started to keep track like this), you can see that 2025 makes every other year pale in comparison. Even the massive years of 2019 and 2024 were left behind by 2025. There’s no way 2026 will be as big. For one thing, I have not even blog posted the second half of the sketches yet. Hey, I’ve been busy, and not had the headspace to write. I will get around to it, but the sketches have not stopped.

Here’s a summary of my art accomplishments in 2025 (this feels a little bit like I’m doing an evaluation at work): (a) Loads of sketching, (b) More sketching, and (c) Even more sketching. Looking back at last year’s summary of 2024, there were interviews and articles, and I don’t remember doing anything much like that in 2025. I did have a couple of drawings shown at the Pence Gallery’s annual Art Auction again. I did a lot of travelling – Washington DC, New York City, Pasadena, Portland, a month-long trip away to Europe which included London, Oxford, Berlin and Poland, plus a few trips down to San Francisco. The biggest art even was attending the annual Urban Sketching Symposium in Poznan, Poland, my first one since Amsterdam in 2019. I still need to write about all of that. I also had a brief show of my Burnt Oak sketches at a special event for the centenary of Burnt Oak tube station last March, though I couldn’t attend in person. It would be nice to do another for the centenary of the Watling Estate in 2026 but I don’t know I’ll be able to set that up; I have lots of ideas, but not lots of time. In Fall I led a weekly session of urban sketching on campus for first year students which was a new experience for me. I also started organizing monthly sketchcrawls again, reinvigorated by my time at the symposium in Poland. I did make one of my most ambitious advent calendars yet, the latest of many I have made for my teenager. One of the highlights was the last-minute trip to fly to Pasadena to watch Oasis at the Rose Bowl, that was unforgettable. And of course, as a Spurs fan, watching us win the Europa League from the comfort of my own couch, after 17 years Tottenham finally win a trophy, but it was a year of atrophy. I did a lot of reading this year, a lot of Agatha Christie and a ton of Terry Pratchett – 2025 was ten years since he died so . Also, I did second ever 10k race, and got a personal best time (after my watch stopped working 10 seconds into the run), 10 minutes faster than in 2023. My ambition this year – run a half marathon. We will see…

These are the sketchbooks I used in 2025, not including a few larger individual pieces:

SKETCHBOOK 59 – Landscape Hahnemühle A5 #2 – September 2025 to present – Davis, Corvallis (OR), Portland (OR)
SKETCHBOOK 58 – Portrait Hahnemühle A5 #1 – August 2025 to September 2025 – Oxford, London, Gdańsk, Poznań, San Francisco, Pasadena, Davis
SKETCHBOOK 57 – Landscape Watercolour Moleskine #29 – August 2025 – London, Gdańsk, Poznań (Poland), Berlin (Germany).
SKETCHBOOK 56 – Landscape Hahnemühle A5 #1 – May 2025 to August 2025 – Davis, San Francisco, London, Oxford (UK).
SKETCHBOOK 55 – Landscape Watercolour Moleskine #28 – March 2025 to May 2025 – Davis, San Francisco, Washington DC, New York
SKETCHBOOK 54 – Landscape Watercolour Moleskine #27 – December 2024 to March 2025 – Davis, Sacramento, San Francisco
Small Seawhite Landscape Sketchbook – February 2025 to July 2025 – Davis, San Francisco, Washington DC, New York, various airports; mostly travel and quick people sketches.
Small Brown Stillman & Birn Sketchbook – August to October 2025 – London, Gdańsk, Poznań, San Francisco, Pasadena, Davis, Portland; mostly quick people sketches.
Small Grey Stillman & Birn Sketchbook – October 2025 to present – Davis

2026 is going to be busy but I’m still tired from 2025, so perhaps trying not to be too ambitious, but still a bit ambitious would be good. Will I ever work on that book? My resolution is to really try to write more, which has been hard in a world where words are flying around like shrapnel. I want to travel, but also to rest, and read more, a lot more. I will turn a big significant age this year. Ok 2026, let’s get on with it.

edgware and its ghosts

November 28, 20251 Comment

It’s time to post the sketches of What I Did On My Summer Holidays. I was away in Europe for the whole month of August, the longest break I’ve had since moving to California, to visit family in London and attend the Urban Sketching Symposium in Poland, as well as take a few days in Berlin. Davis is too hot in the summer. Anyway let’s get on with it. I was back home in Burnt Oak, but I had to go to Edgware, one stop up to the end of the Northern Line (or a ten minute walk up Deansbrook and a short cut through the alley behind the car park). Back in California I found a bunch of old undeveloped camera film in a box from before we had moved out here, so I brought a couple back to England with me to get developed at Snappy Snaps on Station Road (same or next day developing, you can’t get that these days over here, not in Davis; I developed a film at CVS and it took two months, and no negatives back; no positives either). Well Snappy Snaps in Edgware did not disappoint, but I had no idea what was on the film. It was like a time capsule. I stopped using film two decades ago (though my friend got me a film camera last year I don’t use it much). One of the films was photos from London in about 2003, a few pics of our old flat in Crouch End, but a lot from down in the City, before all those big skyscrapers went up. The Gherkin being built. Feels like a million years ago now. the other film was more of a surprise – photos from Las Vegas in 2004, in the day or two before my wife and I got married! Some really nice family pics, all looking so much younger, that I had never seen before, because I had never developed the film. Cupid’s Wedding Chapel, it’s not even there any more. The past came back to life. It was funny that I should see these while walking around Edgware, because it’s a place full of my own past.

Above is Edgware Station, the end of the line. I stood across Station Road to draw it, people walking by, buses turning in to the bus station behind. A lot of memories are in this station, not all of which I can even remember. Getting out here as a first year pupil at Edgware School having survived the often chaotic journey on a schoolkid-packed old tube train from only one stop away, those first days being allowed to travel on public transportation by myself (or with my friend) with my own travelcard, then having the long walk up Green Lane to school, very much a choose-your-own-adventure story. Sometimes instead of the tube I’d brave the bus, the dreaded 251, they saved the oldest and dirtiest buses for the school runs. If I was very brave I’d get the 142, going all the way to the school itself, but what courageous adventurer would choose such peril, not I. Many years later, Edgware was also the unintended last stop of many late nights (well, early mornings), the end of the line for the N5 Night Bus. The Night Bus Years, now that was a time of legends. Waiting for what felt like hours (but was in fact hours) down in Trafalgar Square or Charing Cross Road, fingers greasy from cheap fried chicken, ears still ringing with Rage Against The Machine, managing to stay awake on a bus filled with sweaty nightclubbers that one by one vanish into Belsize Park, Golders Green, Hendon, not knowing exactly where we are due to foggy windows, and gently nodding off to sleep somewhere around Grahame Park, completely missing Burnt Oak and ending up in Edgware. There are only three certainties in life: Death, Taxes and Waking Up at 4am in Edgware Bus Station in the 90s. I imagine that Death when it comes will feel very much like that. I got very used to the walk back to Burnt Oak in the wee hours, passing like a ghost through the alley behind the car park, up Deansbrook Road, down Littlefield and up Orange Hill, and right into bed.

While I drew the station a bearded man started filming my page without asking or acknowledging me, as if I were a real ghost. What you doing, I said. He said he was just showing someone who he was video-chatting with; bit intrusive. Be nice to ask before shoving a phone over my shoulder, I said, before he went off still having his conversation, oblivious. I was told while I was back that there are plans to completely redevelop Edgware, to knock down the Boardwalk Shopping centre next to the bus station, and build something like ten massive tower blocks on top of the car park, completely changing the face of the area. I suppose the alley will go, no more short cut back to Burnt Oak. Who knows, but change keeps coming, and so in a few years this view of Edgware station will look very different. I remember before the Boardwalk opened, there was a junk yard where the car park is. Edgware Station opened on August 14, 1924, 101 years to the month before I drew this sketch. The extension of the Underground into what used to be open country but was becoming known as ‘Metroland’ was responsible for Edgware’s development into the town and then suburb it is today, right at London’s edge. Edgware has existed for centuries though, since Anglo-Saxon times, recorded in the tenth century as ‘Aegces Wer’. I think this was about the time my old Maths teacher started teaching at Edgware School, my school from 1987 to 1994. The school changed its name to ‘London Academy’ a few years later, and then ‘The London Academy’ (as opposed to ‘That Edgware School’ as it was known before). The old school buildings I went to were knocked down years ago, and replaced with something more modern, as were the entire surrounding estates. I have dreams about those old buildings, but they are now just ghosts. Everything changes, and only the ghosts remain.

I will tell you a ghost story now though, so if you are of a nervous disposition, look away now. Above is a row of buildings at the end of Station Road, at the corner of Penshurst Gardens, where it meets steep Hale Lane and curving Edgwarebury Lane (which stretches right up to Edgwarebury Cemetery, final resting place of Amy Winehouse. I stood outside what used to be Loppylugs Records, now an unappealing lounge bar. I wanted to draw this corner because back in the 80s my older sister used to work in the Lunn Poly travel agents, now a Polish food store. She lived in a flat on the top floor above, it was her first place after leaving home, it was the first home of my first nephew, and it also happened to be haunted, by an actual ghost. Now look, let’s be fair, I don’t really believe in ghosts, except maybe the ones that exist. Some ghost stories still give me a shiver, and my big sister used to tell me ghost stories at bedtime, like the one our grandad used to tell about the ghostly music playing where the Titanic sank, though I was never sure why that one scared us so much. It’s the way you tell ’em. Anyway I liked this flat but it was big and old and at the top of a long winding staircase, and the hallway felt like one that would get longer as you went down it. I never saw a ghost, but my sister definitely knew one was there, cold feelings in certain places, unusual things happening like the clocks setting their hands into the same place, noises in the next room. Our dog was too terrified go into the flat, but our dog was also terrified of tortoises. My sister saw the ghost at least once, a pale woman in the bedroom, but it was not scary. A family friend passing by Station Road one day did say they had seen a woman with long hair at the window, when my sister wasn’t home. Since I was a kid scared of everything (except tortoises), my sister didn’t tell me about the ghost at first and I never saw it or had any sense of it at all, but every single time I pass by this part of Station Road I think about that ghost and wonder if she is still up there. I still dream about ghosts a lot, but I think we all do. The window was open as I sketched; there wasn’t a figure there but I drew one in, looking out of the spare bedroom where I used to sleep when I stayed over. I have a few more sketches of Edgware to post but this one is already long enough with the ghost stories; there might be a few more ghosts, or at least highwaymen.