For a change I travelled into Oxford today, to visit the library, the Gloucester Green Market and as it happens – to do some townscape sketching.

Settling for a spot on Castle Street, I set to drawing the semi derilict former Chinese ( Cantonese,Peking & Szechen) restaurant. This building is next to the Whetherspoons on the outside of the old castle quarter. I’ve drawn the ‘Spoons’ a couple of times – usually from the comfort of the central library and these drawings appear elsewhere as previous posts. Today however was about drawing a bit more of this particular townscape around the Castle Quarter.

I quite like the juxpixiation of the modern and some more decaying architectural history. The area behind and next to The Liason has been being demolished for quite some time – and while drawing the ‘360’ excavator was busy at work. So who knows what this particular area will be like in a few years time – possibly with more flats or offices – though Oxford has had at least four sizeable new hotels built in recent years. I guess that they are counting on tourist hoards returning eventually…

Those of you who follow my blog will probably also appreiate the contrast from a couple of days ago when I was in the Formal Gardens at Blenheim Palace – sometimes it is good to mix it up a bit…

While drawing the motorcyclist pulled up across the road for a couple of minutes so I duly added this motorbike to the sketch. If there had been time I might even have add the motorcyclist too – they were wearing something like a giant purple furry muppet helmet – but then that might have been a bit too surreal?