Watercolour of Great Eastern Street, Spitalfields, London

An original mounted and framed watercolour.

Buy this framed: 57cm x 56.5cm watercolour (77cm x 77cm including mount and frame) See below for Additional Information

A bit about Shoreditch
I came across this view a few years back. It is as it looks. Two tube trains on top of a wall. They are used as offices and this scene typifies the new look that Shoreditch has gone through over the past ten years.

Leaning back in a metal chair outside the Shawarma Lebanese kebab house in Shoreditch, I surveyed the scene before me. An odd site to be sure. Hazardously perched high above the street on top of what looked like glass cases were two tube trains. It just didn’t look safe. It looked like they may tip into the road below at any moment. How do you get planning permission to do something like that? How do you get them up there? How do you know it will be safe?

Wiping the remnants of a doner from my jacket, I took a few more swigs of Coke and studied the brick supporting structure more carefully. On closer inspection, I picked out the severed arched stumps of what used to be a railway bridge which must have crossed the street here in times long past.

So I concluded, up top, was built to take trains anyway, heavy steam ones too I shouldn’t wonder, so wimpy old tube trains would be a breeze for these mighty brick shoulders. Yes, a wonderful reuse of an old structure to be sure. A genuine asset to Shoreditch and a fine subject for a watercolour painting.

With that in mind, I was glad that I had just filled myself up as I would be here for at least the next few hours getting it all sorted. I paid my bill and set to work.

I wandered across for a first look and quickly decided that the structures either side really added to the piece and gave it scale and context. I also liked the roller coaster composition across the top.  I also enjoyed the liberal graffiti which for once added to the structure.
Great Eastern Street is in Shoreditch in London’s East End. Shoreditch is currently going through a vibrant and very creative regeneration, galleries are popping up all over the place and these tube trains typify the flavour of the area.

It is a pretty busy street too, so as I began to work out my painting, I could also study my fellow man. If you stand on a street drawing for long enough you slowly become invisible, paradoxically, no one notices you watching if you watch all the time.