Drawing people on the Train: Near Disaster...

You may be wondering why I've not told you how it's going with my new book...

Well, it's mainly because there's been another short delay. My publisher had some new ideas for changes which I wanted to see before I got too stuck into the detailed drawings.  

I've been waiting for final layout sheets to come through, showing their revised ideas about the story's pacing and which text and images they'd like to appear on which pages.  They arrived towards the end of last week, but I haven't made enough progress to show you yet, as I spent most of this week working in Nottingham, rather than in the studio. 

I'll tell you about that another time, but for now, here's a selection of the sketches I did on the train during my 4 days travelling back and forth. Which brings me to my near disaster, first thing Friday morning... 

Five minutes before my train was due, it came up on the departures board as ten minutes late. I phoned ahead to warn them that time might be a bit tight, then decided to pass the 15 minutes doing a quick sketch in the warmth of the platform cafe with a cup of tea. 

But I'd only just got my tea and begun, when the man I was drawing got up to catch a train. Grumbling under my breath, I looked around for someone else to try, only to realise that the man was stepping up onto my train to Nottingham: it was not late at all, but bang on time and getting ready to leave without me! 

I'm sure you can imagine the undignified scrabble which followed: trying to shove sketching gear into handbag, whilst simultaneously grabbing big artwork case and heavy bag of books, then dropping both; shoving escaping books back into heavy bag and trying to grab tea then abandoning it for want of a third hand; finally getting upright with all necessaries, but without the third hand needed to open the cafe door...

I did catch it, thank goodness, so was saved from making that 2nd phone call: 'Hi again. I'm so sorry, but they've now cancelled that train altogether, so it's going to be another half hour. Yes, I know... shocking service, isn't it?'