My pocket sketchbook - Trains home from the New Forest
Trains home from somewhere near the New Forest, via Southampton Central and Slough. Another car-free journey three years after we sold our aged Rover 75 for parts.
Train travel is by no means stress free, but nor is driving. And had we been on the road, I'd never have caught sight of fellow travellers on rail platforms or in train carriages.
At the top of this picture passengers are waiting to board a Great Western Railway train, sketched from inside the station. The tiny people at right were my view down the platform just outside the station door. As the train pulled out of Southampton I sketched Tony reading a political thriller, and before we alighted at Reading I had just enough time to draw the lady in the sun dress with her phone. The next leg of the journey was busier, with no chance of sketching without calling attention to myself, so I committed to memory as best I could an impression of curly hair, spectacles and a mild expression, and later placed my last subject on the page as if she were a footnote. Her striped jumper is an invention to lead the eye into the drawing.
I doubt the people in my sketchbook would recognise themselves, as I seldom manage a proper likeness when on the go, have been known to add or subtract beards or swap eyebrows from one person to another, and am often carried away with hair.
This is one of my everyday-carry A6 Eco sketchbooks by Seawhite. As always, I make line drawings on site with a sepia fineliner pen, and add watercolour at home.
