Sketchbook Notes

 Over the years I have built up many sketchbooks, they are a valuable source of information for completed works. They act as a memory aid, sometimes an accurate painting follows from the sketch and other times parts are used from different sketches with a bit of poetic licence thrown in! Going through these sketchbooks with my daughter I thought it would make an interesting post to see a few before and after's...

The Barley Mow Pub in Greenwich - sold.

Digby Fairweather Band at The Festival Hall, London.

Dockers Shelter, Redriffe Road, Bermondsey, London. 1970.

Clock, Stool and Fireplace (neat version!).

Do-It-Yourself.

Under Hungerford Bridge 1992.

Java Wharf - sold

Timer Going Overside, Surrey Docks, 1982

The Welders at Pipers Wharf - sold.

Going through the sketchbook 2025.

Sidney Jacob Scales

 My father Sidney Jacob Scales, was a stevedore who worked in the Royal Albert Docks all his life. Both the journey to work through the Blackwall Tunnel every day and the work itself was hard. I drew these sketches between the late 1940's and 50's when my father came home from work exhausted. It was a tough life as these sketches show but his exhaustion meant he was the perfect model for his teenage son at Camberwell School of Art! Now looking back they seem to speak volumes...