Battersea Power Station London

Sunday 11th October  

With new Glue stick in hand I was determined to capture Battersea Power Station so I stopped off at Vauxhall station on my way to Waterloo, and walked along the Thames Path to sketch the Power Station from across the river. When I was in my late teens I used the train line  that passed Battersea Power Station quite a lot and it was always an iconic land mark for me as the train approached London. I thought that drawing with torn Paper was an appropriate medium to capture the regeneration taking place. 

My inspiration for using collage paper and mark making comes from the amazing collages by John Piper. The piece below is Titled the Martello Towers at Hythe 1932 and he used ink, gouache, pencil and collage. I love the naivety and combination of media.

John Piper in 1930s Abstraction on the Beach

Juggling with Paper and glue on a windy day can be quite a challenge. I perched on the wall edge by the railings and being careful not to loose anything else in the river I started to create some patterns and textures on to a variety of papers from observation of the Battersea Power Station to draw/collage with.

Media - variety of papers, brush pen, cool grey and ivory marker pen, digital colour

Along Chelsea Embankment

On the Saturday the 10th of October I managed to get to the sketch crawl with London Urban Sketchers around Battersea Park and Chelsea Embankment. It was great to catch up with familiar faces and meet new urban sketchers. I walked through Battersea park on the way to the meeting point and I was amazed by its size and how busy it was. There was so many exciting possibilities to sketch it was almost overwhelming. I decided to concentrate on the Bridges along The chelsea Embankment and then maybe Battersea Power station later. My plan was to collage with torn paper, pen and marker. I had especially been out to buy a glue stick and had spent time preparing a pocket of collaged papers in the back of my sketchbook. It didn't all go to plan .....I decided to perch on the embankment wall and opened out my pen holder and my glue just casually rolled out and dropped into the Thames.

Not a good start ...... This is my first sketch of the day of The Albert Bridge. I have added a small amount of digital colouring at home to capture the water and sky.

 

Impressive and famous ornate Bazalgette's lamps along the Chelsea Embankment and sketching from a Vulliamy's Sphinx bench.

On my way home I decided to walk to Vauxhall Station along the Thames path as it was a lovely evening. It took longer than I expected !! but was worth it . I had a bit of a wait for my train back to  to Thames Ditton so I managed one more sketch.