The Age of the Drain

One of the things that you get struck by when you travel on a different metro system for the first time is how similar it is to the London Underground, and one of the other things you get struck by is how different it is. If we take Lisbon, the Metro I used for the first time most recently, it’s far more homogenous than the tube. The firs line of the Metro de Lisboa first opened in 1959, which is a long time ago being before I was born. However it was almost a full century after the Metropolitan Railway – the first Underground line of any kind. Today, in my experience the platforms of every station I visited looked all the same and the trains looked all the same. There are four lines, but apart from the colours they are named after there is no noticeable difference.

Compare this to the Underground when I was growing up in the 70s. The District Line from Ealing Broadway ran very different trains from the Central Line from Ealing Broadway, which were different from the newer trains on the Piccadilly from Northfields which began running in the mid 70s. However, the most different of all was the Waterloo and City line. That's the subject of my latest drawing

For one thing, when I was a kid it wasn’t even run by London Transport, even though it was included on the London Underground Map. It was built in 1898 by the Waterloo and City Railway Company, with the support of the London South Western Railway (LSWR). The LSWR took the line over completely before the stat of the Great War. In the 20s the many railway companies of Great Britain – with the exception of the London Underground railways – were amalgamated into the big four – the LMS, LNER, Great Western and the Southern Railway, which the LSWR was part of. In the post World War II nationalisation of the railways the line passed to British Railways. Finally, in 1994, the line was transferred to London Underground for the princely sum of £1.

The picture shows a single car of the 1940 stock that continued running right up until the end of the British Rail custodianship. I made a simpler drawing of one of these for Inktober a few years ago when the prompt was Drain, that being the nickname of the line.

Lisbon Sketchbook

 Yes, I spent three days in Lisbon at the start of the month. Here's the sketches from the trip

Being as its Remembrance Sunday

 Yes, being as it's Remembrance Sunday I decided to make a couple of sketches paying tribute to the London Underground's vital role in providing shelter for many thousands of Londoners during the Blitz and after. Both of my parents were born in West London in the first months of the war. I can't be certain that they or my grandparents ever sheltered in the Tube during the war - stupidly I never talked to them about it when they were alive for me to do so. I think it's quite possible that my grandfather Cecil might have done so, He worked as a bank messenger, and was also a firewatcher during the war. Here's the sketches. They are both based on photographs taken in Holborn station, on the Central Line platforms, I think.

It's half term, so. . .

 Yes, it's half term week in what is planned to be my last school year as a teacher. So I've had more time over the weekend to make ink sketches. I stayed on the old London Underground theme with this latest sketch. I believe that this type of electric locomotive was used in the early days of what became the Central line.

I'm quite pleased with the series. I've cropped and squared off the four - here they are: - 

The original Metro

Yes, I've been keeping my hand in with pen and ink this week, and made a couple of sketches showing locomotives that once worked the Metropolitan Railway - the oldest London Underground railway and in fact the first underground/subway/ metro line in the world. 

Metropolitan Railway Electric Locomotive - Wembley Park

Metropolitan Railway Steam locomotive Baker Street.

Now, I would love to be able to say that I dashed both of these off in about half an hour. I'd love to be able to say that but it would be a lie. The electric locomotive took me about 3 weekday evenings after work, in roughly 2 hour sessions while watching the telly. The steam locomotive I did in one sitting yesterday, but it was a marathon sitting of five or six hours. 

The London Underground is a subject I love, so much so that I did once consider it as a Mastermind specialist subject. In the end I didn't take it, though. 

Why the Metropolitan? Well, not only was it the first, but it was also where the generic word Metro originates. When the Paris underground railway was built and opened in 1900 it was decided to call it the Metropolitain, after London's Metropolitan railway. Metropolitain became shortened to Metro and now many underground railways and subway systems across the world are called metros. 

The second picture took so long because of the extreme amount of shading. I mostly used a 0.1mm nib for both sketches. 

Kingsway Tramway subway ink sketch

 Okay, it's 3 weeks since I last made an ink sketch, so I made this today. It's based on a photo which I'd guess was taken before the First World War. 

The Kingsway tramway subway was built in the early years of the 20th century, and it is the only underground tram tunnel ever to be built in Britain. The decision to build the subway was taken right at the end of the 19th century with the purpose of linking northern London tramlines with those to the south of London.

For more than 20 years only single decker trams were used in services through the subway. Only in 1929 was work carried out to enable the use of double decker trams. In some places the tubing of the tunnel was replaced by steel girders and joists which you can see in the sketch. In some placed the track was lowered as well. The subway was reopened in 1931.

The journey between Holborn and Aldwych took about 10 minutes, although the northbound journey could take 2 minutes longer than the southbound journey. This might have something to do with the difficulty of persuading a tram to go up the steep northern ramp. Only experienced drivers were allowed to drive trams through the subway.

From about 1935 the London Passenger Transport Board began to abandon trams and replace them with trolleybuses. By 1940 only South London trams and the subway trams remained. The height restrictions in the tunnel meant that trolleybuses were unsuitable as they couldn't draw power overhead in the subway itself. 

In 1952 the LPTB abandoned the last of its trams. The decision was made not to run diesel bus services through the subway, and some of the tracks still remain in place there. For some time the LPTTB stored unused coronation buses there, ad then it was used as storage space for some time. In 1958 work began to convert part of the southern end of the subway for motor vehicle use, and this became the Strand underpass. I have been driven through this more than once, so to that extent I guess I have been in at least part of the old subway. 

I know that in 2021 the London Transport Museum started offering tours of the unused part of the subway, and it's an ambition to one day take them up on this.

I used a photograph for this painting I made a few years ago. It was taken after the subway was converted so double decker trams could be used. 

Big Leggy

 Sorry about the somewhat cryptic tile of this post. I'm referencing a 1982 chart hit by a group with the name of Hayzifantayzi - or something like, and the title was "John Wayne is Big Leggy". No, me neither. Still, here's the finished John Wayne commission: - 

I'm not unhappy with this. The colours are very bold and rather unnatural, but it kind of works. I like the reflections in the creek. I'm so glad that I painted big John first. The buyer is delighted and paid up like a god'un.

Update

 I ended my last post telling you about the plan I concocted with my daughter Zara to make some drawings of Aberdare and see if we could interest a welsh gift store. Well, the proprietor liked the drawings enough to invite me to show them to her in person. I framed them and took them down last Saturday. To cut a long story short she agreed to sell all  of the originals, and a set of prints, and asked if I could make her some postcards. Well, yes I could.

Just as we were sorting out the small print as it were, a couple came in, very interested in the drawings, who then asked me about a potential commission sketch. Yes please. Later that day he bought one of the drawings. 

I'll come back to commissions afterwards. But the success last weekend made me think that there's the possibility I could repeat this with other towns in South Wales. I drew a blank with Port Talbot a fortnight ago. The very nice lady who runs the welsh souvenir shop in the town centre is running down her stock with a view to closing the shop permanently and is not taking on any new lines. I popped into Neath Market on the way home from Aberdare last weekend, but there is no stall selling prints, or interested in starting to sell prints. 

So I decided to try to replicate what we'd done with Aberdare. There's a number of very nice Welsh towns not so far away and I spent some time researching which of hese have gift shops similar to that of Aberdare. I don't want to approach them until I've made some sample sketches of each. I picked Penarth, just outside Cardiff to begin with. Here's the drawings

I've sent the initial email with scans to a place in Penarth, so now I'm playing a waiting game to hopefully hear back. 

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Speaking of commissions, during the week I was commissioned to produce a painting of John Wayne from the film Eldorado. This is how far I've got today - 

Chasing the Pounds

It’s been a busy old few weeks, dearly beloved. I last posted towards the end of August. I don’ know if I’ve told you this before but although I’m not a professional artist I’m certainly not against making a bob or two from my work, if the opportunity arises. What I do is that any money I make from selling artwork goes into materials and then any left over from that goes away to pay for my next sketching trip.

Now, the next trip in 6 weeks time is to Lisbon, one of my long-term bucket list destinations. That’s all booked up and paid for, and the spending money is sorted as well. Still, when I returned from Copenhagen in August, while it wasn’t exactly an old mother Hubbard situation, the fact was that the coffers could well do with topping up. I sold three of my London Underground watercolours I made but I took a few attempts. So I did a little research into what was selling. As a stopgap I reduced some of my best selling A4 sized prints to A6 and sold some of those. I also had a look at London Underground paintings on a well known online auction site to see what sort of thing was attracting bids. Hand painted A6 postcard sized paintings seemed to be the thing. As a result I made a few to test with – very simple things that could be dashed off in a few minutes:-

Well, I’ll be honest, even though I got sales for a few minutes work it’s really not my sort of thing. So when I did a couple more, this time I added some famous faces and some humour. I came up with these:-

Well, to cut a long story short they all sold and I enjoyed making them a bit more. So I made these:-

As I write this seven of the eight have been bought and the other was only listed a few days ago and has a couple of days to sell. We’re not talking about life-changing amounts of money, but it’s been quite fun and so I’ve made a second set of 8. We’ll see how they go.

At the same time I’ve been promoting my prints whenever I get the opportunity (sometimes even when I haven’t. For example- Facebook. Facebook can be a good place to promote your stuff, but it’s tricky. Most groups do not want you promoting your stuff. So it’s a matter of finding he right group, joining it and saying – hey, this is my stuff. Do you like it?  And waiting to see if anyone says – I’d love to have a copy of that. Then messaging them privately and taking it on from there. I usually put a message – please do not repost or print without asking me first, and I trust people to be honest enough not to do so, especially when I put
a link to my Etsy shop. Here's a couple of examples:-

To be honest, I’ve had a couple of cheeky messages. I was messaged on Etsy by someone who must have been from the London Underground and Overground Enthusiasts Facebook Group, saying words to the effect of – I’d really like digital copies of all of your Underground sketches. These would only be for my own personal archive – would it be possible to let me have them for a reasonable price? Now, at this time I had not listed them on Etsy.

I thought that he was trying it on, but politeness costs nothing, and s I replied as courteously as I could, that I had not though of listing them on Etsy (but I was thinking of doing so now) and so what would he consider a reasonable price?

No reply.

I did list prints of my station drawings on Etsy, and out of courtesy I messaged him and said that I had received other enquiries about buying prints so had decided to list them. I also said that I usually ask £2 to £3 for a downloadable print, so even if I was to let him have them for the ridiculously reduced price of fifty p each that would still come to well over £100. Sorry I couldn’t help further, please don’t hesitate to contact me again, yutta yuttah.

No reply.

I don’t blame anyone for trying. But I’m not giving it away. The holiday pot is looking a lot more healthy. I reckon that there’s enough in there now to get me to New York (and back. )

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Last Tuesday my middle daughter Zara invited me to a quiz in Aberdare. (Sorry to brag, but in another life I was the last schoolteacher to win a series of Mastermind). While there she told me that she though that the town was very pretty, and would be great for sketching. We agreed that I should make some sketches, and we could try to see if the local Welsh shop would be interested. Well, I’ve made the sketches –

So we’ll see if we can get some kind of deal going. Ooh – it’s exciting!