Monday 28 August 2017

Notting Hill Carnival - day 2

I'm a local resident - one of the few around in my road this bank holiday.
This morning I start drawing members of the Elimu Mas Band getting ready in the Paddington Arts building, but I begin to shiver on a hot day, leave early and make my way home.











The hundred-plus Batala drummers, sounding like the apocalypse, open proceedings and I pause to watch their complicated cornering manoeuvre into Westbourne Grove.

I revive at dusk and wander out. Concerned citizen journalists are videoing something through gaps in a hedge: police are subduing someone in a garden. But that means riot police and - oh joy - horses.

People are entranced. Pat-the-horse becomes the only game in town. 'I could stay here for ever,' says one boy as his girlfriend pulls him away.









One drunk boy offers to punch a horse. 'I really wouldn't do that,' says the rider.

'What a shitty carnival,' says a drunk white girl wearing hardly any clothes. In one sense she is accurate: as I walk past the villas tonight, the faecal smells are horse, fox and human; the neighbourhood dogs will have a diverting walk tomorrow morning.

 

2 comments:

  1. Great sketches. I love the messy lining which the watercolor seems to straingthen out perfectly:) PS: which pens are you using? The lines seem really smooth.

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  2. Platinum Carbon pen (waterproof), Platinum Century 3776 (waterproof), Kuretake no. 55 brush pen

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