Another complex scenario which the accommodating editor has to work his way around. Although these drawings come out of my imagination, encouraged of course by the text, they are still based on real life. I still have to do find a willing participant to get hands and magazines right, adapt furnishings found in Images to suit, and ultimately convince the reader that this is all perfectly normal. Best bit this month, the old school infra red.

Fun with London Urban Sketchers in the rain today, except I drew this from inside Cambridge Circus' McDonalds. I thought I'd go for the quick style, which would have been okay, but as I was having a good chat with my friend, this took just as long as my usual work. The words at the bottom are from Rae Morrison's song, wafting over the airwaves while I finished my cappuccino.

This month was all about staircases, random objects, and trying to get DD full face, teetering downstairs. Creating your 'person's' face in different angles, whilst retaining their characteristics, is a dedicated, practical, and conscious task. As I once read, if it isn't instinctive, you have to learn it.

Very exciting this month to be featured in Leopard the London Assay Office's newsletter!

This delightful piece of brickwork is immediately left of the Mayflower pub, at number 117. Drawn on site, plus a few of the top bricks painted in before we retired to the pub for the customary discussion. Also, got to have another go with the latest addition to my paintbox, a 5ml tube of buff titanium, by Daniel Smith. Just the right colour to use as the base for London stocks. Everything else is varying degrees of hookers green dark, indigo, paynes grey, cadmium red pale, sepia, ..... you get the idea.

Funny how the drawings one thinks are going to be a piece of cake, end up being anything but. 'South Woodford station maybe?' said the editor. Oo fab, I'd drawn the outside a couple of times before, so I was sure I could adapt one of those. After realising my mistake, I armed myself with some photo evidence and got down to work. The ticket barriers, ironwork, the underside of the roof, and how it all fits together. This is what drawing does, it makes you take notice. Even down to the holes in a Wilko laundry basket.