Drawing Tuesday - Science Museum

Tthe Timekeeping section turned out not to be such a good choice because of the lack of seats or benches (the Science Museum doesn't offer sketching stools, which is perhaps understandable in light of the many school groups that use the museum).

I found a comfortable place on the floor, with a view to drawing the clock from Dover Castle (c.1200) -

but ended up standing the whole time as I had to go nearer to be able to see it and to work out which cog was connected to which lever. It felt very complicated, for such a "primitive" mechanism - in fact, not primitive at all. It's my drawing that is the primitive thing -

Nor can you actually see it, because it's a mass of sketchy pencil lines, nothing definite.

So, while preparing this post, I took some tracing paper and a pen and, not without gnashing of teeth, came up with this -

Only a week after spending two hours looking at that clock, I had completely lost all sense of the interconnections of the mechanism, even with reference to the photograph. While doing the tracing, I reminded myself this is not a technical drawing, and it's a first attempt, done without any technical knowledge. 

What I carry forward from the various frustrations arising from the drawing and the tracing is: (1) consider using different viewpoints for small details, to understand interconnections; (2) give up the pale pencil marks; (3) be bold and be prepared to start again. It also made me think about the different qualities that pencil and pen bring to a drawing.

Another view, end on -

This has words added (rather than detail drawings) - at the top, "foliot mechanism goes here"; elsewhere, "decorative details", "more cogs", "more wheels", "how many cogs on this wheel" - and "losing the will to live - perspective gone wrong - not enough space". The use of words was spurred by this module of the extended drawing course. 

Jo's telescope, by James Nasmyth, 1848-52

Janet B's ever-sketchier, personality-laden chairs

Joyce's equinoctial sundial, Russian, 1771-1820

Sue's clock from the 1500s

Carol's hourglasses, including the Divine Office glass -
9 1/4 minutes, for timing parts of religious services

And the tool of the week - "pure liquid ink" rollerball -

It's late...

...at Lancaster Gate ...

Eye clock

Funky clock, and the fuzzy photo kinda fits the "better vision" theme - it was taken while driving past in 2009 on our xmas day outing to the seaside ... but that's another story....

"Moorfields Eye Hospital
Deeply cool. This clock is shaped like an eye, at an eye hospital. It’s so apt! Commissioned in 1999 to mark the Queen’s visit to the hospital, which goes to show that there are some good reasons for retaining the monarchy." (via)

Keeping time

Can you spot five clocks?

What is amazing is that this sequence of clocks along Fleet Street are all telling the right time! All too often when you see a public clock, it has stopped working - yet another case of neglect and degradation of public services.

Before the days of the Greenwich Time Signal - the beeps that signal the "top of the hour", aka "the pips" - someone went to Greenwich Observatory every day, reset a pocket chronometer to the exact time, and take this time round to merchants and others who had subscribed to this service. From 1836 to 1856 this person was John Henry Belville, after which his widow Maria took on the job, passing it in 1892 to her daughter Ruth, the most famous "Greenwich time lady", who continued in the job until the 1930s, retiring in her 80s like her mother. The Greenwich time signal was started in 1924; before that, another way of getting the accurate time was to subscribe to a telegraphic time signal.

Underground time

Knightsbridge.

Another view of the eye hospital

Cool clock ... appropriate ... (so is the blurred vision)

Saturday in Islington

First to a craft fair, where we stocked up on Isolde Sommerfeldt's Estonian-style aprons and the wonderful warm hand knit socks and slippers she imports from Estonia (my family has a long history of hand-knit xmas prezzies and appreciates warm slippers) -

Along the Essex Road, this gorgeous clock -
and less-than-gorgeous crumbling lettering (Eagle Dining Rooms?)
next to a 1920s cinema inspired by the Tutankamun craze -
It was used as a bingo hall, but the smoking ban has diminished the appeal of bingo and closed many places down, badly affecting older people for whom bingo was central to their socialising.

These people - fabric lovers all -
are setting up a rug-hooking group in London - we plan to meet centrally every month on a Saturday afternoon, so if you'd like to join us, do contact me.