Battersea Art Centre Saturday

A long, tiring day started with an early morning hike to the Tube station in 14° weather. That wasn't as bad as the hour long tube ride in an unheated train. Some trains were "faulty" and some closed for scheduled weekend engineer maintenance, so the trip took longer than it should have, and we had to change trains a couple of times due to the closures. By the time we got to the Battersea Art Centre, my fingers were numb and tingling, and Robin's toes were frozen.

The Battersea Art Centre is a very cool old building that's used for all sorts of events and performances. It was built in the late 1800s as the Battersea Town Hall, to house the offices that governed the Battersea Borough that was growing by leaps and bounds on the south bank of the Thames.

Waiting to change trains at a frigid outdoor train station, Rayners Lane.

After a tube and bus journey of nearly two hours, we arrive at BAC, frozen but in good spirits.

All the drawers gather in the BAC cafe space, waiting for someone from London Drawing to give us the day's agenda. There will be 20 to 25 models posing from 11:00 to 1:00 and from 2:30 - 5:00.

Robin spent the day in the lobby area, reading and studying. We went to lunch together during the lunch break. The Parisienne. A Parisian restaurant, in London, run by Mid-Eastern people. I had the All American breakfast. Just try to imagine how weird that turned out.

After an introduction by a man and woman from London Drawing, everyone heads upstairs to the sketching rooms.

Outside the BAC front entrance, there seems to have been a font accident. Or perhaps the remains of typographic performance art. Or maybe the beginning of the dreaded Helvetica invasion that has been prophesied in ancient texts. 

The model stage. They're taking a break now. 

Sketchers tape their drawings to a wall so everyone can get inspiration from the varied styles and techniques.

A great space for a large group.

Checking out each others drawings. There's a very wide range of styles, techniques, and drawing experience, but almost every drawing has some appeal.

An artist tapes her sketch to the wall.

I'll post more photos tomorrow of the days event, including some of the drawings. The London Drawing people are going to post photos of the sketch sessions and models in a couple of days. I'll link to that when they post it.

Tomorrow morning our flatmates, Wally and Maria, are going into London to audition as extras for the movie Les Miserables. Also the landlord is coming over to see if he can fix the clothes dryer in our flat. The excitement never stops.  

Warm Up Drawing

A quick sketch of Robin working, to warm up for tomorrow's "drawing theatre," using the charcoal sticks I bought this afternoon.

Preparing For Drawing London & BAC

Haven't left the flat for the past two days, except to go out this afternoon to an art supply store and buy a new sketchbook and some charcoal for tomorrow's drawing session with London Drawing at the BAC (Battersea Art Centre), on the south side of the Thames.

This morning Robin held a three-hour Shakespeare tutorial session in our flat for Wally & Maria. Just sitting nearby and listening, I'm getting smarter. 

Wally and Maria, until very recently, ran the Lakeland Theater in North Carolina. One of the events they created is the Star of the Year award for a Lakeland actor, voted on by Lakeland patrons. The award  will be presented tomorrow night, so I shot a video of Wally and Maria announcing the winner, then sent the edited video to the tech guy at Lakeland. The video will be shown at the event.

The video intro graphic.

I shot video of Wally & Maria with my iPhone 4s, then did a quick edit in iMovie on my laptop. 

Below: photos from the walk to the art supply store.

St. Margaret's church, conveniently located across the street from The Queens Head pub.

A sculpture in the middle of the Uxbridge town centre, titled "Anticipation." Personally, I would have gone with "Daddy's At The Pub, I'll Deal With Him Later." But I suppose "Anticipation" is close enough. 

The Metropolitan, where artists and writers hang out. At least two of them that we know of.

Ahhh, the convenience of having two Starbucks within spitting distance. This one is outside, the one in the background is inside the mall. 

Sign on the side of The Queens Head. "A warm welcome and great value drinks here at your local." Here at your local what? Nice sign though.

These guys outside The Three Tuns must miss the old days when they didn't have to go outside in the cold to smoke. 

Once upon a time Robin and I were in a pub in Inverness, Scotland, on New Year's Eve, and the smoke was so thick we could barely hear the bagpipe playing Auld Lange Syne.

Robin Presents

We went to the Brunel campus early today for Robin to give a Mary Sidney presentation to a class in the Shakespearean Authorship MA program. She made some minor changes to the presentation since I last saw it, and it was great, as usual.  

If you haven't seen one of her Mary Sidney presentations, she's been asked to present at the Esther Bone Library in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, on Thursday evening, May 3rd.

In addition to an entertaining and informative slide presentation, there were handouts and audience participation. Robin gave us a sheet with five different sonnets on it and asked us to identify the two that are actually in the Shakespeare canon. The one that most people thought was by Shakespeare was actually written by Mary Sidney. Maybe that doesn't prove anything, but I'm willing to bet big money that Mary Sidney would destroy the man from Stratford in a rap battle.   

After the presentation, a short meeting with Bill Leahy, Head of the School of the Arts at Brunel, then a stop at the Metropolitan (again) for dinner and cider.

Drinking cider, stage one.

Drinking cider, stage two.

Drinking cider, stage three. 

Just kidding. The horizontal glass is for dramatic effect only (love the pub lighting). If I didn't know better I'd swear there's no alcohol in cider. That's how un-inebriated a pint makes you feel. 

Or maybe they sell fake stuff to foreigners so they can save the real cider for themselves. 

Maybe next time I should say "A pint o cider, mate" instead of "I guess I'm fixin' to need some cider over here, if y'all don't mind."

Crazy Horse Sketch

Crazy Horse Paris doesn't allow photos, so from memory I've reconstructed the event. 

As a Brit artist once said to me as he was drawing, "I think I've captured something here!"

Or maybe you had to be there.

Tube Security & Comfort

There are lots of security cameras in the Tube stations. 

Hmmm, suspicious looking character on the far left screen.

Never mind... just some American taking a photo of himself on the security screen. 

The Metropolitan line is gradually putting new train cars into service. They're roomier, cleaner, quieter, and smoother. All of the cars are connected and you can walk all the way thru to find a seat (instead of being trapped in the car you originally boarded). Very nice.

One Final Paris Photo

The Sunday morning view from our Paris apartment, with a light dusting of snow. 

Every night and every morning there was an amazing amount of street noise. Even though we were on the 7th floor, voices and footsteps below sounded like they were right outside the sliding glass balcony door. But Sunday morning it was surprising how quiet it was, and how few people and cars were out and about.

It's nice being back in our ground floor apartment in Uxbridge. At noon we walked thru the slush (it snowed more here than in Paris) to the grocery store to get supplies for the next several days. 

Bill Leahy, the Head of the School of Arts, emailed Robin and asked her to give her Mary Sidney presentation to his class this coming Wednesday instead of weeks from now, so she's been working on that presentation and rehearsing (she's changed it some since the last time she presented it).

Flatmate Maria has had a bad cold since we left for Paris, so we're hunkered down here hoping she gets well instead of us getting sick. The friendly cat that showed up last week came back and slept with Robin and I last night (it's cold, wet, and snowy outside). Tonight she's spending the night with Wally and Maria.

Wednesday we'll be on the Brunel campus from noon until 9 p.m., then on Saturday Robin plans to go to the British Library to do research while I go to the London Drawing event I signed up for. 

I'm starting to miss Paris already.

As the sign says, your car will be towed if you park here.