Canal II
Returning to the towpath at Camden High Street’s bridge, the south-eastern stretch is strikingly different from the previous western section, but is just as good to draw because of its levelness, its ever-changing reflections, and its vivid architectural contrasts of old and new. It’s also interesting for the things floating on it – boats, barges, birds, beer cans and plastic bottles, seasonal pondweed, and beneath them less idyllic non-floaters like fish, eels, dead dogs and pigeons, and occasional sunlit glimpses of a muddy bottom.
The canal was the area’s earliest big commercial venture, but in the early nineteenth century it had to wend its way downstream between existing rural properties, so to begin with it still twists and bends quite confusingly. More recent developments – among them the steel and concrete flats behind Sainsbury’s – have sanitized the open spaces beside the towpath, which lead on to the rougher and less predictable feel of the next long straight and more commercial part. Eventually, just beyond another lock, you reach a striking new metal footbridge that leads across to Camley Street’s nature reserve. From this bridge you can see in the background the cluster of old gasometers recently converted into well-designed flats. A little further on, seen across the canal from the wonderful Granary Square, pencil-thin concrete lift shafts are rising for a development that will shortly blot out the sky between them.
Towpath life – dealing, bikes, fights between coots and (here) between people. A short but pretty terrace of houses stands opposite some relatively modern flats in their own gated area. The canal has only one offensive downside: the tedious and repetitive graffiti, amateurishly sprayed on any accessible surface.
Every spring the trees and the undergrowth still astonish me by the power of their sudden growth to transform the most ordinary subjects. It was noticing the idyllic towpath scene below that made me want to do this book. A walk on the towpath is full of surprises and delights: the silent cyclist behind you; the bare toe poking out of a slit in a dome tent’s canvas.
These drawings were made quickly and finished on the spot. A drawing can be quick or slow, slight or serious; a rough sketch, jotted down as if in shorthand, or more careful and deliberate – it doesn’t matter which. I enjoyed exaggerating the curvaceous swoop of the Coal Drops Yard roof, and didn’t mind letting the old gasholder look more rickety than it really does. The canal drawing here took a bit longer, its light touch of watercolour adding a hint of autumn.
