Covent Garden Market.

This is a drawing of Covent Garden market in London based on a Kodak Advantix photograph which I took in July 2000. It's looking south, down Southampton Street towards the Strand. You can see the red-brick building that used to be the flagship Doc Marten Dept. Store in the background, though I think, since the photo was taken, Doc Marten packed up their boots and moved out, and there's a general London souvenir store there now. It's a large tourist-oriented shopping area, though the only store whose logo I could easily make out in this photo was the Body Shop.

I drew it using coloured pencils (mostly Prismacolor) on card in August 2005.

The thing I like about the photo it's based on is that there was a random guy (in the black shirt) who walked in the shot right into the "vanishing point" of the picture, so most of the major "perspective" lines are pointing directly towards him. I don't know whether it was an accident or whether he was trying to ruin the photo, but he filled in what would have been a gaping empty area in the photo and made it that much stronger, so, to honour him, five years later, I did this drawing. I wish I knew who the mystery guy was so I could thank him myself. (I don't know why, but I get a vibe that his name might either be "Simon" or "Nick".)

There wasn't that much detail for his face, so I took a few liberties, making his eyes a little more pronounced. I like the effect, like he's staring at me. His arms really were at a bit of a weird angle in the original photo, so that's pretty much straight how they looked.


I liked drawing the renovation scaffolding behind him. That was fun.

I think the thing that took me the most time to draw, somehow, was the people in the restaruant. Even though I made them a bit cartoonish and wasn't that concerned with realism, there are just so many small details that I felt I had to include, and also, it's a bit harder than you'd think getting everyone lined up correctly, so that people at the same table look like they're facing each other, but I'm satisfied with the job I did.