Dalston Eastern Curve Garden

Sheltering from the rain under the Pavillion

We've been back home from Canada for a month now and since then I have largely taken a break from sketching.

Tuesday was my birthday in addition to it being the Battle of Britain Day. Usually I really enjoy my birthday but this year I didn't. I found the whole day to be emotional gruelling and a bit of a slog. This is because the next day, 16 September, was my mum's birthday and she died just over a year ago so I spent the day mourning her absence.

I decided not to spend the day moping around at home and went by bus to visit the Dalston Eastern Curve garden which I have visited before but not for a long time even though it was a rainy old day. This is a thriving community garden that has been formed from on the old Eastern Curve railway line and is a delightful spot to spend a few hours even when it's cold and wet.

I sheltered underneath the Pavillion which was designed and built by a French architectural collective called EXY2T in spring 2010 while I drank tea and ate cake. I took my usual collection of sketchbooks, water soluble pencils and ink pens with me and I chose to concentrate on the view above and I thought I was mostly concentrating on the foliage.

I realised while I was drawing the table that I had got the perspective wrong and this meant I couldn't include all of the table that I could actually see. What I didn't realise until I got home was that the table was dominating the entire composition. I would have preferred to have an equal balance of table and plants but I couldn't see that until I got away from the view. I feel quite critical of this sketch but am glad that I have restarted sketching and hope that my results are more successful when I visit Freightliner's farm in Islington with the Islington Art Society next week.

Feeling stressed

My second visit to the Timber Yard café

I have been wondering on and off since my one outing with the Urban Sketchers back in January why I had such a negative response to the outing when I had been looking forward to it so much. Yesterday I had some free time in the late afternoon so I returned to the Timber Yard café with my sketch book with the intention of settling down to doing some drawing while drinking my coffee, a sort of solo urban sketching trip if you like.

I realised that over the years I have bought into the idea that visiting a café is a relaxing experience and it dawned on me yesterday that I actually find it really stressful. The Timber Yard café has only recently opened, is in a popular location, is full of comfy seating, has pleasant staff, art on the walls and nice things to eat and drink. What's not to like?

Well here goes: being surrounded by people hunched over their laptops and/or smart phones. Sitting near people having a business meeting or conducting interviews or even worse speed dating. Having to endure a young couple practically having sex at the next table and then glancing up from my sketch book to see a young, very fashion conscious girl posing on the stairs as though she was in a fashion show and we were merely her audience. I managed to draw the sketch above and I think you can see that I was anything but relaxed when I made it.

So this made me think of times when I have made what I think of as much more interesting drawings when I have been relaxed and unaware of the world around me. For example I met another sketcher in London Fields a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time we had met but we spent a convivial couple of hours of chatting and drawing together and this is what I produced.

Union Chapel from Highbury Fields

And on another occasion I drew this sketch of Clapham Common after I had visited the dentist and before I had to be at work. I was relieved the dentist visit was over and was able to enjoy some time to myself and relax while enjoying the view. So now I know I need to avoid situations where I'm going to be full of inner turmoil if I'm going to draw anything worthwhile.

View of Clapham Common