Coats and coats and coats.

Sorry there hasn’t been a post in a while… I’ve been standing on crammed trains smelling the muggy funk of damp coats and strangers armpits which isn’t the ideal situation for drawing. However I did manage to capture a few of the cagoule, coat and anorak covered commuters who’ve packed the underground in the last few days. Here they are:

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for coming!

tom

 

Two women. Two mustaches.

If there’s one thing that I hope to achieve with my work, it’s to demonstrate how disappointingly misleading a title can truly be…

After reading about Movember I noticed two fine examples among my fellow commuters and present them here for your enjoyment. Sorry about the lack of bearded women, I do try but I can only work with what I’m given:

 

 

 

 

Thanks.

Tom

Well that was fun…

Yesterday was weird. Good! (thanks everyone involved) but weird.

I didn’t post anything in advance because… well because I didn’t really believe it was going to happen, but the Metro ran a feature on my tube drawings!? It was good stuff, some quality puns (theirs not mine), a little bit about my work and six of my illustrations!

“Well done me!” I thought, “I’m gonna do laps after that.” grab a few copis, go home, check emails…No. Oh no no.

Instead… go home, be invited to be on ITN 6 o’clock, panic, agree, do phone interview with the lovely Mhairi from the Waltham Forest Guardian (see that here), spend a few hours feeling incredibly self conscious with Nick Thatcher and his team, try to draw while having a panic attack on the tube with people staring at me and then off to work to watch it in gut wrenching embarassment! Brilliant.

It looked great in the end and, other than having my face in it, I was very pleased and flattered. I think it’s on the internet somewhere but I hope it goes away soon.

Anyway, I also did some drawing, which is the point of all this in the first place and what you waded through this turgid, self congratulatory ramble for, so here it is:

(Another one. What kind of idiot wears sunglasses on the tube?

Him. That’s who.)

And here, off the telly, is my drawing of Nick Thatcher from ITN. (The most pressure I’ve ever experienced while drawing. )

Thanks

Tom

It’s worse on the tube.

I know, because people tell me, that I’m not the most patient person. But no matter how grumpy or irritable I can be normally it’s worse on the tube.

Maybe it’s because I’m normally in a rush when I’m on the tube, or because I’m on my way to work, or have just come from work… or maybe it’s because I’m just grumpier underground, but no matter what people suddenly seem to become incredibly irritating and thoughtless…except you of course. Obviously not you.

So here are some people doing things that irritated me for no reason! I haven’t captioned them all individually so see if you can spot the irritation in each one (bear in mind some are ludicrously petty). Enjoy!

If you figured them all out then congratulations, you’re as bad as I am.

Tom

Just for now:

I haven’t scanned the most recent tube drawings… sorry. For now though I thought I might as well try and interest you in some previous projects of mine:

“Staying with Strangers”

Two weeks travelling the country living in the homes of complete strangers in an attempt to put myself into unfamiliar social situations

with no oportunity of retreating to my own comfortable surroundings.

“Theatre”

A look at the differences between the mechanics and the outward presentation of a theatrical production.

“Unfamiliar”

My first reportage project documenting my attempts to ingratiate myself with the locals of an unfriendly local pub.

There, conclusive proof I have seen at least three places other than my house, my work and the inside of a tube train.

To see more of each project have a look on my website: www.tombuddle.com

More tube drawings later…

Tom

Standing up and… sitting down.

Sorry for the gap between posts (anyone who cares…) I have spent my week: working, panicking, coughing and, of course, traveling for hours and hours a day on the underground. To make up for my the delay I present a bumper(ish) crop of my tube drawings.

The good thing about putting my drawings up on here is that I’m basically getting a giant group tutorial, which holds off those cravings for tutors and classrooms for a while, and sometimes someone may spot things in your work you might not have. For example: I hadn’t drawn anyone standing up.

Well here they are, with some others who aren’t, standing.

It’s a big step for me as I’m sure you’ll agree and the most amazingly tenuous link yet…

This woman must have been in her late twenties/early thirties and, I promise I’m telling the truth and not embellishing at all, was

picking her nose…and eating it…on the tube.

Disgusting yes, but it made me want to draw her so maybe it says more about me.

Tom

Nothing at all…

I haven’t been filling the pages of my sketchbook with as much regularity over the last few days. This is partly because I’ve been trapped on very full trains a few times and not been sat down etc. and partly because I found a copy of the new “Empire” with Shaun Riley on the front cover and felt compelled to buy and read it cover to cover. Anyway, I looked at my drawings from last night and today and noted what they had in common. Nothing at all really, so as I cant think of anything else to say…

(I have to point out that he did have a hand, he just moved before I got to it.)

Tom

Sheer bloody mindedness…

It’s odd, looking back through my sketchbooks and trying to remember why I chose to draw the people did. Sometimes it’s obvious, they were doing something unusual or funny, they’re interesting looking or they were they only person there. But sometimes I’ve found myself drawing someone out of sheer bloody mindedness:

This woman gave me such a filthy look the moment I sat down opposite her that I drew her (in not the most flattering way) because I thought I deserved it.

Here are some more people from the last few days that were drawn with a slightly more forgiving hand:

I loved the way this womans ludicrously bright accessories stood out against her plain flat coat.

(She looked just looked quite angry at her paper…)

The page below is a bit off the point here because they weren’t drawn on the tube, the top was on the street and the bottom is audience members at the palace theater as seen from the balcony.

Lastly a drawing from this morning. This man was so fast asleep in the corner of the carriage at about 9:30 this morning that I’m fairly sure he missed his stop and may well still be there… shuttling back and forth, from end to end of the district line waiting for some ponce to sketch him and put it on the internet… thanks for coming by.

Tom

Looking over my shoulder.

Over the last couple of days I’ve started thinking about other people’s reactions to my drawings.

There’s the obvious things like people lifting their paper up to cover their face a bit more or just plain staring me out so that I feel way to guilty/scared to carry on drawing them. However, I’m often travelling in rush hour so almost always have someone sat next to me which I tend to forget about…

 

Even as I drew this girl unknowingly sharing her newspaper with her neighbour I realised the man next to me was sneaking glances at my sketchbook. This isn’t unusual and reactions have ranged from complete indifference,to confusion, to the occasional nudge or nod with a “those are nice” or something similar. This man however looked utterly terrified by it all, staring at the sketchbook like it was made of human skin or something. 

 

 

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that everyone’s looking over everyone’s shoulder on the tube and it’s easy to forget that I’m no exception. I just have to hope they don’t give the game away before I get a chance to finish…

 

Tom

How can I milk this…?

That’s pretty much the only thing I’ve been able to think about in the last 24 hours.

WordPress very kindly featured me on their “Freshly Pressed” section of the homepage yesterday which meant a staggering number of people visited the blog. Thank you to everyone who came by and to WordPress, I’m incredibly grateful to everyone, however…

It did mean that I instantly became a neurotic mess. I spent hours convinced that this would be the only time anyone would visit my blog and I had to make them return. I had to do something, anything to sell myself to them, to convince them I was worth the effort of returning, to keep getting those hits! Eventually I calmed down, decided not to create new posts begging for attention and fawning over you all and did something completely unexpected.

I drew on the tube.

Unfortunately the grim grey drizzle being driven across London right now seemed to have some notable affects on my fellow commuters:

1) The layers

Pretty much everyone was wrapped up so tight that they were just faces surrounded by a sea of wool which doesn’t make them very easy or interesting to draw and,

2) They were all bloody asleep!

I’m sure you would have noticed this for yourself from the drawings but it needs pointing out because whilst a sleeping subject is much less likely to move around or stare at you accusingly they’re also about ten times less likely to do or say anything funny or interesting.

So if I’m trying to be logical, I can use the opposites of all my moans to figure out the ideal subject for drawing on the tube. My conclusion is that it would be a restless yet unconscious, sleep-talking fidget with as few clothes as possible… which doesn’t really paint me in a very good light, but I’m sure it would rack up the hits.

Tom

(Here is a bonus drawing of a man playing an accordion:

thanks again for stopping by.)