Drawing London

After a lifetime drawing London, the watercolorist David Gentleman set out to discover if it’s possible to look afresh at the place where you live. He spent a year immersing himself in the metropolis, capturing the teeming crowds and the ever-shifting light of its changeable skies. Here he introduces a selection of images from throughout the year, and tells how his familiar world was transformed.

Evening, Camden Town
I spent all of last year drawing London, a place I’d lived in for over 60 years and felt I already knew perfectly well. That turned out to be wrong

Olympic park
It’s changing fast, as its remaining empty spaces get built on and its mushrooming skyline bristles with new landmarks that dwarf everything else

The Thames from 80 Strand
To look at the cranes you wouldn’t think there was a recession on

Primrose Hill
I enjoy London’s variety, its contrasts of old and new, grand and ordinary – of Georgian, Victorian, Gothic Revival and the shiny glass and steel tower blocks of the City and Canary Wharf

Westminster
I love the Thames, for the space and openness it provides in a crowded city, and the way it gives one a chance to look across the water and survey the tightly-packed City from a safe distance

Regent’s Park
I enjoyed drawing its profusion of green spaces – heath, parks, gardens, squares – and the gleam and peace of its canals. Exploring some unknown parts revealed surprises and delights in Wandsworth, Deptford, Walworth and distant Rainham Marshes

Underground
I’m less keen on the city’s paranoid security and surveillance, its numerous war memorials, its growing abundance of tourist attractions and pseudo-heritage, its traffic, expensiveness and increasing unfairness, and the constant sense that Londoners are being squeezed out as the better bits are snapped up by the unimaginably rich

Whitechapel Road market
But these drawbacks are offset by many virtues: the presence of the ordinary Londoners, polite, cosmopolitan and tolerant; the city’s grandeur and its cheeky street markets; the feeling of energy and vitality that pervades it

Piccadilly
Drawing its people, places and things made me look hard, notice, understand and remember them. It was a packed and fascinating experience

The new collection brings to life the city he’s lived in for 60 years, with 400 pages of London loveliness. Here’s a short interview with the author to whet your appetite.

You can buy London, You’re Beautiful by David Gentleman from

amazon.com or amazon.co.uk

Mooooo

xxx

London 2012 Olympics by numbers

 

It’s here. The greatest show on Earth.

Seven years ago, Dame Kelly Holmes and Steve Cram bounced around Trafalgar Square upon hearing the news that London had been awarded the Olympic Games.

And now the time has come. Things came full circle yesterday when the Olympic torch was welcomed to Trafalgar Square by thousands of people.

A winning start for Great Britain’s women’s football team and a Korean flag foul-up aside, the Games begin properly tonight with the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.

Film director Danny Boyle’s vision for the event may have looked like the set of Postman Pat when it was unveiled in model form last month, but reports from the dress rehearsals have been positive. Amazingly in this technological age, the event has become the best kept secret in Britain.

Tonight’s ceremony will set in motion more than two weeks of sporting action. Medals will be won, records will be broken, tears will be shed, toys will be thrown out of the pram and the sun will shine. Okay, perhaps one of those things cannot be guaranteed.

Away from the track, the field, the pool and the arenas, other questions will be answered too. After weeks of criticism of the handling of Olympic security, will things run smoothly? Will London’s transport system cope with one million extra people?

Whatever happens over the next few weeks, the world will be watching.

Let the Games begin.

Mooooo

xxx

 

The New Thames Cable Car – In Pictures

The Emirates Air Line, the UK’s first urban cable car, links the North Greenwich Peninsula with Royal Docks. In one of the more controversial sponsorship deals in Transport for London’s history, the eponymous airline got its name on the Tube map, and on the cable car’s two terminals.

At a height of 90m, the views across the Docklands and Canary Wharf and toward the Olympic Park are impressive, if not spectacular. The price – adult fares are £3.20 for Oyster users, £4.30 cash.

Mooooo

xxx