...should I stay or should I go...?

Wow - I thought getting up at 8am to get a space opposite Downham Market Railway Station to draw the station was good timing - boy was I wrong! 

I returned the next day at 6am! Pitch black, parked directly opposite and promptly slept for two hours. I awoke at 8am ready and raring to go - well, not quite. Bought a hot coffee from the cafe returned to the car and drawing board balanced on the steering wheel - began drawing. 

After a few hours of diligent drawing, it did not seem to be going as well as I'd hoped - my  station appeared to have a life and proportions of it's own, but of course I carried on with it anyway...

...Downham Market's Award-Winning Railway Station - Pen & Ink and hot wake you up Coffee!

 

When I returned to the studio to complete the work from photo reference I could see that I had exaggerated certain architectural features and not other's. My first instinct then was to correct it, but quickly thought to go with it - it did after all have a certain charm...it became a very popular pen & ink rendition of the station. 

As it happens, several months later while exhibiting it in the Downham Market May Festival exhibition, the picture was purchased by Andrew Archibald, the chap who had been responsible for the Award-Winning conversion of Downham's station as featured in the TV series by Michael Portillo.

Downham's Award-Winning Railway Station - Pen & Ink, hot steaming tea and watercolour!

He subsequently commissioned me to draw the station's King's Cross platform and also the olde Signal Box - Andrew, not Michael Portillo.