This waning exhibition

This poster had been removed by the time I visited on Monday 5 October

As a general rule, when you organise an exhibition, you know when the start date and end dates will be. I had chosen the installation date towards the end of September because it marked one year since this project's inception. I had vaguely thought that I would remove the posters about one month later if they were still there.

I had also sort of hoped that passers-by might take them down and maybe display them in their homes. So far six of the posters have been taken away and it's always been around the weekends. Of course I have no idea where they might be: they could have been tossed in a bin, or been sent floating down the canal for all I know.

I visited the exhibition site again last Wednesday, 7 October and the remaining four posters were still all there. I have visited again today Tuesday, 13 October, and the two posters below have gone leaving two left. I would guess that they will have been taken by next weekend. I'll keep you posted.

Is this the final drawing?

Part of my view before it was interrupted

I had been settled into my pen and ink drawing for some time when my view was interrupted by a small film crew. They walked passed me and were pondering where to film, having exchanged views about the position of the sun, when they decided that the exact point I was concentrating on was going to be their special spot.

They politely apologised for inconveniencing me and promised they wouldn't take long (famous last words) and set up their shoot. They filmed their sequence numerous times so it was just as well that I had managed to complete enough of my composition so that I could easily concentrate on another part of the scene.

Some random clutter on the roof of a boat

I had initially been standing to the side of the towpath so I wouldn't be in other users way but I was getting a bit tired by this point, and since the film crew didn't mind at all about hogging the space, I decided to sit on my wee sketching stool. This means that half of the drawing was made at one angle and the rest of it at a lower angle. I decided this didn't matter too much and pressed on regardless.

The filming was going on to the left of this composition

Before the film crew had rolled up I had been considering this image as the final one in this series of drawings. But the more I worked on it the more I came to realise that there is at least one more to do before I can call it a day and this will have to wait until I get back from holiday.

Rusty staples or nails (I can't decide)

Saturday night's party revealed on Sunday morning

I've returned to my travels along the towpath with renewed enthusiasm now I feel more rested. I usually draw on weekdays but this time I've ventured out on a Sunday morning and look what I found en route to my destination. The party leftovers are not what I had in mind to draw but they are lying on top of the same wall that I planned to concentrate on.

These rusty objects attracted my attention a few days before

I decided I would try using the candle wax resist again to represent the cement between the bricks and then use an Indian ink wash over the top of it. I was in the mood to experiment and see what happened. I could have been more patient and used more wax so there would have been more of a contrast between the ink wash and the white cement, as it is the result is quite subtle. Then I wanted to include the rusty, naily things and some of the foliage. The finished result reminded me of the paving and mud drawing from earlier on in the series.

My finished sketch where I just wanted to experiment

It was on this occasion that I had something of a breakthrough. This part of the towpath doesn't have a grass verge to sit on so I had to stand by the wall which meant that I was very close to all the foot traffic that was passing back and forth. For the first time ever (I think) I was completely relaxed about people watching what I was doing as they went on their way, happy to chat if they wanted to and just as happy to be ignored as well.

Sheltering under a canopy of leaves

The drawing of the canopy with the real branches in shadow adding an extra dimension to the scene

A fairly dull view ahead of me...

 Since I began this series of drawings I have been progressing my way along the tow path from Wick Lane towards White Post Lane. For this drawing I doubled back on myself and sat on the same bench that I used to make my first sketch. This time I faced the canal instead of having my back to it and looked up at the canopy of leaves above me instead of looking straight ahead.

I started in the same spirit as the previous drawing where I tried to let the line wander where it wanted to go. I began the drawing without looking at the paper, only at the view, but discovered I didn't have the confidence to complete the whole drawing doing that because I wanted the finished result to look a bit like the view I had. I might try that approach again later in the series just to see what happens.

... but look what I saw at my feet, a scene full of possibilities

The adventure continues

You can just see the green boat in the distance where I sat for this drawing

I walked past the wall of graffiti for this sketch and set my stool up near the green boat you can see in the distance. I settled on a view of a boat with lots of interesting stuff stored on the roof that was in front of a warehouse that, in turn, had horizontal and verticals lines on the siding which also took my fancy.

Lunch break

I had barely got started on this task when a nice man engaged me in conversation and we spent quite a long time setting the world to rights. Then I found out he lived on the very boat that was the subject of my drawing. He clearly has a penchant for push bikes because in addition to the ones I could see stored on the roof of the boat he had another one he used when he cycled off on some errand after we had finished our conversation.

As I was wrestling with all the competing stuff on the roof another man stopped by to say hello. We had chatted a few days before and he told me that he's a mechanic and the dog he was walking belongs to his boss. This poor mutt spends his days stuck in the machine shop and only gets to go out when his owner's employee takes him out during his lunch hour so the dog was understandably quite excitable. Earlier on another passer-by showed an interest in my drawing but I didn't have much to show him at that point. I feel I am becoming part of the canal landscape now I'm beginning to get to know people while I am at the same time also responding to it which makes me feel slightly uneasy but I expect I'll get used to it.

Here's the finished drawing leaning against the tree trunk in the foreground

Gates at lower lock

The girl on this boat told me how much she just loved all the graffiti on the wall behind me

I settled on the gates of the lower lock as my subject today and I spent quite a lot of

time eating my lunch and watching the world go by before I put pen to paper. I was sitting right in front of a wall covered from top to bottom in what I think is really uninteresting graffiti. As far as I can see its only redeeming feature is that

it is very colourful and it is always being repainted. I seem to be very much in the minority here. I was interested to see how many passers-by made a point of photographing sections of this colourful mess or having their photo taken in front of it - it is clearly a tourist attraction and all I was doing was getting in their way.

There was quite a lot of boating traffic too, going up and down the canal which I found much more riveting. The boat above moored up and waited patiently while a Thames barge came through the lock. I observed the whole process for long enough to see how slowly the lock filled with water once the sluice gates had been opened and how this determined the pace at which canal life proceeds. I was also struck by the physical effort the boating crews have to exert to open and close the gates and how many single people work the locks on their own which must be quite an art.

I used pen and a wash of Indian ink for this sketch

Paving and mud

My view from where I was sitting looking towards the middle lock

When I was a little girl I used to like playing in the back garden making what I called mud pies. I would take soil from a flower bed, dump it into a tin washing-up bowl, tip loads of water on it and then mix it up into a lovely mess. When I finished that I would pour it all over my Dad's crazy paving patio that he had painstakingly created from a job-lot of broken paving stones that had been delivered by the council. To be honest it was more like gravy than pie.

My interest in mud survives to this day and this became the focus of this drawing. The mud won out over three other possible contenders which were: the foliage near the middle lock, two narrow boats next to each other and the lock gates of the bottom lock. The day I drew this we had sun all day: it was glorious and so it meant I had to be content to study dry mud as all the puddles had dried up.

I chose to sit near to my friend the disembodied head for this drawing. To digress for a moment body parts are not unknown in the canals around London. A few years ago a man murdered his sister not far from where we live and distributed parts of her body around the canal system and they were turning up for months and only last week the body of a woman was found in the Grand Union canal in a suitcase. I can't imagine why murderers think that disposing of their handiwork in a canal is a good idea.

From where I was sitting I could see this interesting structure. It appears to be a raft with tarpaulins stretched over it. I was sitting there long enough to notice that there was smoke coming out of the little chimney on the top and it made me wonder who was in there and what they were doing there – maybe it is someone's home?

When I finally settled down to observing the mud and paving stones I realised I enjoyed looking at the contrast between the lines on the paving stones and the random arrangement of the twigs, dried leaves, stones and the lumps and bumps of the mud so this drawing is a response to that. I tried to describe some of the patterns in the mud by applying Indian ink through the sort of mesh bag that you get vegetables in from the supermarket. It worked well when I tried it out at home on paper with a different surface to this one. It worked less well on this occasion 'out in the field'.

The middle lock

The Hertford Union Canal only has three locks and this is the one in the middle

I completed this drawing in one session and it took two hours. I'm now able to work for longer than I was at the start of this project where I was only able to concentrate for about 40 minutes but then I had chosen a very intricate composition for my first drawing. I've decided that having a flask of tea handy makes the difference between pressing on and giving up.

The more I studied this view the more variations I could see in the surface of the bridge. At first glance it just looks like a creamy coloured structure but then you start to see the bumps and inconsistencies and the shadows. I think it has weathered very well considering it was built in around 1830. It's covered in graffiti these days but since I don't want to celebrate bad artwork I've chosen to overlook it and concentrate on the view.

I've begun to attract comments from passers-by and so far they have all been interested in what I'm doing but I don't expect this will always be the case. I've designed some mini flyers the size of credit cards to give away to interested people to encourage them to look at the blog and see the drawings as part of a series and so far they have been gladly accepted. For the time being this represents the sum total of my marketing strategy. I'm off to a networking event tomorrow evening and I'm curious to see how these will be received.

A clearer view of the lock gates which are used regularly by boats on the move

Working with found objects

I can never tell in advance how quickly I might finish a drawing

My tools included some leaves, a split twig,
a sponge and a paint brush

Today I fancied responding to the towpath by drawing with found objects picked up near where I was working. I find it tempting when working on a drawing to try and control every mark that I make on the paper. This is actually impossible to achieve so I can end up feeling quite exhausted.

Since I'm aiming to challenge myself with these drawings I decided today was the day to let go of my usual expectations and try and relax. Surprise, surprise it worked and I completely lost any sense of time.

What you can't see from the photograph is all the dust and gritty stuff that is trapped in the ink. I think it adds an interesting dimension to the finished piece along with all the little drops of water that found their way on to the page. I found a bench that was secluded from the wind but I was still subjected to a constant shower of dust. In the end I just stopped blowing it off and let it be.

Constantly moving water

The water was in a constant state of flux and looked different every time I raised my head.

Hertford Union Canal is very short being only 1¼ miles in length. On 17 May 1824, during the reign of King George IV, 'an Act of Parliament granted permission for the Hertford Union Canal to be made from the River Lee Navigation in the Parish of Saint Mary Stratford Bow in the county of Middlesex to join the Regent's Canal at or near a place called Old Ford Lock, in the Parish of Saint Matthew Bethnal Green in the said county of Middlesex.'

The canal opened in 1830 and effectively linked the town of Hertford at the head of the River Lee Navigation with the Regent's Canal and from there to the Grand Union Canal. This meant that traders in Hertford were now able to sell their goods the length and breadth of the country. Sadly the canal was not a financial success and it was bought by the Regent's Canal Company in 1854.

I chose for my second drawing to challenge myself and try and depict the water in the canal. It only took me just over an hour to complete it but my head was fairly buzzing by the end of it as I took in the constantly changing light and movement of the water. I was quite glad to have a short break as I watched a narrow boat navigate its way through the nearby lock before I returned to my 'labours'. I can't imagine how J M W Turner did it!

Catching the blossom before it fades

The broken red rule marks my route between Wick Lane and White Post Lane

I've completed my first drawing. I'm letting this series of drawings take as long as they like to complete which is going to test my patience. I did this one in about 3.5 hours over five sessions. The weather varied over the five days from windy to hot. On the hot day I ate a picnic lunch at the bench where I was working and three people said hello to me as they walked by which I thought was amazing. Two people had the courage to approach me to see what I was doing and have a chat.

When I'm concentrating on drawing I become more aware of sounds around me and on the first day I was bombarded with an whirring engine close by, birds tweeting, traffic humming and police sirens off in the distance topped off with a whiff of diesel fumes. When it was windy I had to deal with paper flying around and when it was sunny my eyes watered and my nose ran. These are some of the joys of working outside.

I have been observing the blossom developing over the last few weeks and was keen to concentrate on some of that for my first drawing before it all disappears. I was glad to find that I hadn't left it too late to spend time scrutinising some of it and here are the results.

Introducing my new drawing project

Close to the start of my new route near Wick Lane

The route of this project is a fraction of the length of my previous project, Drawing my way round London, that travelled round north London beginning at the Woolwich Ferry in the east and ending at Richmond in the west.

As the title of this blog reveals this journey is merely 805 of my steps in length. It starts at Wick Lane and covers the towpath of the Hertford Union Canal until it joins the River Lee Navigation at White Post Lane. During this spring season I will be making drawings along the route of anything that takes my fancy and I will stop on 21 June, Midsummer's Day. I will be posting them here for you to see and comment on.

This towpath is regularly used by runners, families taking their children for walks, dog walkers and people out for a stroll. It is close to convivial pubs and Victoria Park, London's first public park. It's where you go when you need to get out of the house and stretch your legs. Other people moor their narrow boats here temporarily and call the place their home.

There's generally an air of quiet busyness but during the 19th and 20th centuries this area was a powerhouse of industry which has all but disappeared. So, while I'm posting my new drawings, I'll also be looking at the different heavy industries that worked cheek by jowl with each other close to this very route.