Adjaye's Sunken House and an almond tree

We recently followed a street tree walk around our local streets from Paul Wood's enlightening book London's Street Trees. It was a bit of an epiphany to realise what an urban arboretum we have been walking under all these years: the route took in strawberry trees, tulip trees, dawn redwoods, Persian ironwoods, juneberries, wild service and Japanese pagoda trees, among others. The borough of Hackney alone has alone planted more than 1,000 street trees since 2018.

This almond tree (you won't recognise it from my drawing) grows on the pavement outside David Adjaye's Sunken House. Adjaye's designs include the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, and the Mole House, just around the corner from the Sunken House, which was once owned by the Hackney Mole Man, who spent years tunnelling under the house with unfortunate consequences. I wrote about it on the Urban Sketchers blog a few years ago when the house was still a ruin.

There's more of my work on Instagram. 

The house of the Brexiteer

Boris Johnson's house in Islington is on one of my regular cycle routes into the city, and in the brutal political atmosphere of the past few weeks since the dismal vote to leave the European Union, it had often appeared as a backdrop on the news, surrounded by the media, as its Eurosceptic occupant set about his business. By the time I drew it, the circus had moved on, and a last few cameras were disappearing into the back of a van.
Johnson, having betrayed Cameron, was in turn stabbed in the back by his mate Gove, who was stabbed in the front by practically every other Conservative MP, leaving the field open, eventually, for Theresa May to become prime minister. It's been a turbulent time in UK politics, in which all the leading Leave campaigners, having got their way, have left the field.
This is all true as I write, but could be out of date by the end of the day.

In time for Christmas

I have digital prints of my work on sale at Skylark Galleries, Oxo Tower Wharf, on London's South Bank, until 31 January 2014 (closes 3pm on Christmas Eve), and two small paintings in a selling group show of postcard-sized works (including this painting, Return: Devon to Paddington, above) at the Frame Factory, Cross Street, Islington, London N1 2BG, also until 31 January.

Postcard-sized works at the Frame Factory, N1

There is a Christmas exhibition of postcard-sized works that I have some work in that has just opened down the road a bit from where I live. Thanks to the artist, framer and fellow Stoke Newington dweller Kim Scouller for inviting me to take part. The show continues at the Frame Factory, 20 Cross Street, Islington, London N1 2BG until 31 January 2014. (My painting is at the bottom left of the poster.)