In November 2020, the UK experience its second national lockdown meaning that non-essential retail, leisure, and hospitality, among other things, were once again, closed. This national lockdown was set to last for no longer than four weeks.
Scrolling through the social media platform, Instagram, a photo of Tower Bridge appeared on my feed – taken from a siding along the River Thames. The siding would not be accessible when the tide is in on the river.
Tower Bridge is one of London’s iconic bridges. The structural design of the bridge, with the corridors suspended between the two ends of the bridge. Further, Tower Bridge is also infamous for its parting structure to allow tall ships to pass along the Thames. Something that was more common when the River Thames played host to being a trading centre.
The bridge only ‘opens’ now and again these days but the engineering feat that is Tower Bridge will never not be impressive.
This piece is done with chalk pastel with not much blending but more using the colours of the palette with smoothing out to ensure the texture was even. Detail on the towers at each end of the bridge was hard to achieve. They are certainly not perfect – but still, the creation shows Tower Bridge in its own way.
This blog post is available in audio as a podcast and can be found here: Tower Bridge, London audio
Artwork in Progress 