About town

Here's a few sketches of yesterday's excellent shopping day.
Let's start the journey with some fellow humans on Lewisham High Street.


I then took a train meaning to get off at London Bridge but immerse in my thoughts I forgot to get off and proceeded to Cannon Street. Here's a characteristic traffic lights for trains portrayed as the train stopped on London Bridge. I believe that it did so on purpose, just to give me the opportunity to admire the splendid set of traffic lights. Thank you Railtrack!


This involuntary diversion to Cannon Street turned out to be a lucky one as I had the opportunity to listen to the performance of one of London's finest buskers. Helmut Scholz, master of the fiddle and visual bomb.


After listening to his playing for a minute or so I just could not refrain from sketching him - he appreciated. He's a tough one because in spite of his evident age he keeps on jumping from side to side. First I did a marker sketch on my pocket sketchbook then I took out of my backpack the big one and started drawing there. I just had the time to sketch these two drawings here that two German girls on holiday in London approached me offering me money(!) to buy the sketch on the pocket sketchbook that was lying open on the floor. A pound exchanged hands.
They then asked if I could draw them and I accepted the challenge and as I had never done anything of the like I was relieved to see that they were very pleased with the result. They pocketed that too but no money was exchanged this time.

Helmut finished his performance and together we went to have a coffee in Angel. I'll be drawing him this Wednesday at Green Park Tube Station where he'll be playing between 2 pm and 4 pm.
We then parted company and I proceeded with my shopping that consisted of two bagfuls of artist's material including 12 Winsor & Newton brushes and a copy of Don Quixote that I'm almost ashamed to say I have never read before.

To close this diaristic post here's a drawing of melancholic everyday life at the Riverdale Shopping Centre of Lewisham. I've done this today with a miraculous brush/pen from yesterday's shopping.
Closing time is approaching and as a child is busy with his game-boy the waiters clean up the place at one of the cafes of the shopping centre.