Engineering the London Underground

This little 12 minute documentary all about the construction of London's underground tube network is great. I became aware of it on Ian Visits' blog and it's definitely worth making a cuppa and giving it a watch. The bits that caught my attention the most were the '3D-ified' archive stills of tunnel construction. Lens flares, blurry bits and a small sense of camera movement. Surprisingly magical (and a wee bit moving, dare I say it). Commissioned by the Institute of Civil Engineers, I understand.

Musical Architecture

Here's a sneak preview of some work that I was commissioned to do by Universal Music. I'll write a proper post about it (and share more examples) when their promotional push begins. Until then, here's a little peak. Residents of London SE19 may recognise a familiar former occupant of Crystal Palace Park.

Survivors of the Great Fire of London

In preparation for a project about the Great Fire of London I visited a clutch of London buildings that are claimed to have survived the flames. (The piece of work now isn't happening, but I may do something with it in the future). I imagine that there has been a bit of restoration to the facades here and there, but they all seem to have kept their charm.

It's quite hard to imagine the city of London as it was in the past, full of creaking, jumbled and overhanging wooden buildings. A recent CGI project by students at Leicester de Montfort University tried to recreate it, which is quite successful but not smelly enough:

Also, whilst doing some picture research into Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, I found some old photos of Coventry before it was bombed during the Second World War. Architecture that's also been lost to fire and destruction, but up until the 1940s I imagine it still had a flavour of what some of London was like before the clumsy baker set fire to his buns.

Experimenting with Londoners

I've plans to create some patterns incorporating tube passengers. Not sure how it's going to come together, but that's how it should be. Before I can really make some progress, I've got to do a stack of drawings to play with. Here's a little taster of how it's going:

Drawing for Life – 8

Back in the life drawing class again, above The Sparrowhawk pub, London, SE19. I tried my hand with some compressed charcoal. It was a bit tricky, as that medium is great for large scale drawing, but a bit hard to control on an A4 pad of paper. I think next time, if I use it, I'll make sure the sheets of paper are larger. So, I've only included my favourite drawing from the night. In future, I'm going to be more ruthless with my editing. Otherwise this blog is in danger of being a constant parade of naked bodies.