Kings Cross St Pancras - Victoria Line, Northern Line, Hammersmith and City Line, Circle Line, Metropolitan Line

Station: 010/270
Date: 27/03/2018 
Travelling Companions: None

010 148 x 210mm Watercolour and Ink - £50

I often used to get off here and walk down to Tottenham Court Road rather than change 

A short walk past the British Library from Euston to Kings Cross. As with Euston it's hard to pinpoint what constitutes the exterior or entrance to this tube station, there are many ways in and many routes around it's maze of tunnels once you're inside.

Kings Cross tube station tells lies as well. Some of the signs for the Victoria Line deliberately send you the long way around. I assume it's to prevent passenger congestion.

It's one of those London badges you earn and then wear with honour. Nope, don't go that way, follow me, I know London I do.

I sit on the concrete on what used to be the front of Kings Cross is kind of the back. I draw the old hotel between the gaps of some new station architecture. Everything is changing and moving. Even the station itself. 

Here's a link on how to navigate Kings Cross station.

Euston - Victoria Line, Northern Line

Station: 009/270
Date: 27/03/2019
Travelling Companions: None

009 148 x 210mm Watercolour and Ink - £50

Walking from Warren Street to Euston I notice the things that aren't there. I also don't notice the things that aren't there.

The building works for cross rail has run an eraser through some of the streets to the side of Euston. I remember a hotel Ibis that's disappeared, but not what was either side of it. We don't really remember the buildings that disappear. We just notice the gaps and think, what used to be there?

It's not the first time the railway has rubbed away the landscape. Euston station used to have a magnificent arch as it's entrance. It was removed in the 60s when the new station was built.

The idea of this project is to draw the entrance or exterior of each Underground Station but in these big main line termini it's sometimes hard to ascertain what is the entrance exactly. There is an entrance to Euston Station but really I think the entrance to the Underground might just be the top of the escalators so I drew that.

Everyone is in motion and I am the only person standing still, no wait, one other person. A man in hi-viz. He tells people to use both escalators. He says it every minute or so.

Because we are the people who are staying there and not moving through we notice each other. We acknowledge our shared static nature. Until I leave.

Here's John Betjeman on the Euston Arch

Warren Street - Victoria Line, Northern Line

008 148 x 210mm Watercolour and Ink - £50

Station: 008/270
Date: 04/01/2018 
Travelling Companions: Minnie the Dog

Warren Street often used to feel like the edge of the middle for me.

I often used to get off here and walk down to Tottenham Court Road rather than change on the Northern Line. It was perhaps the first instance of me knowing London well enough to walk between points rather than use transport.

I used to love that walk because during my twenties lots of the shops on the walk from Warren Street to Tottenham Court Road were hi-fi and computer shops, but it was the age we now live in, where everything you need is encased in one white box.

It was still the age of the gadget where different combinations of devices with various leads could make all sorts of dreams come true.

I particularly remember the Pro Tape shop. A shop which sold every kind of recording medium you could imagine. A shop never needed again.

It was lust and consumerism for me with my face pressed up against the shop window glass, but it was also something that poked my imagination. What would you do with all that stuff Darren? What songs would you make? What films would you shoot?

Stockwell - Victoria and Northern Line

002 210 x 148mm Watercolour and Ink - £50

Station: 001/270
Date: 13/10/2018 
Travelling Companions: Nick Richards and Minnie the Dog

The day is far too sunny for October.

Outside Stockwell station is a permanent memorial to Jean Charles De Menezes. It's a photo of him in the sun too and it tells us not to forget. But the picture is blurred and fuzzy and I think how often random victims are immortalised by bad photos.

Nick's drawing of Stockwell War Memorial

Pick a good photo when I go guys. Not one from the side, I have no chin.

I nestle by the bike racks again. A joker offers me some money. I've been working in the countryside for a long time. I'm used to no-one talking to me. Except the neighbourhood watch.

As well as Minnie the dog my walking companion today has been Nick Richards. I used to live with him at art college back when I was 18/19. At one point the three people in our house had the three lowest marks on the course. I wasn't quite reckless enough to be proud of that then but I am now.

Me and Nick have recently become reacquainted and I enjoy talking to him about drawing and what we can do to get better at it. He is much better then me and always has been, but I still see some connection between our drawings. Some kind of similarity born out of learning together.

I remember drawing with Nick in the middle of the night by the River Medway in East Farleigh.

I remember spraining my ankle one drunken night coming home from Suzzanne's. She recorded my songs in her basement and had a box that made the drums sound good.