Karen, Rotunda Cafe, Preston Park, 11th February 2017

The hardest thing to draw is people - and this looks nothing like Karen.
Sorry Karen...

Joe Bird, Revival Coffee Shop, George Street, Hove

Joe's down from Worcester, visiting for the weekend. White skies, interspersed with sun. Oh, here we are, Revival again - the winter of 2016 - 2017 is marked by coffees - two nights of drinking - and we'll probably end up in the pub later as well...

Andrew Gough, Revival Coffee Shop, George Street, Hove

Hove Seafront, leant against the King Alfred Swimming Pool, 2:43 - 2:54pm

I prefer the beach crows to the seagulls. There's something more secretive about them, something about them that belongs to the edges, the twilights, the margins.

Revival Coffee Shop, George Street, Hove

January is a month spent under siege, living in a succession of interiors; living rooms, bedrooms, coffee shops, public transport, bookshops, newsagents, kitchens, hallways... Anywhere to avoid outside. The outside, the exterior of our lives becomes a harsh thing, a trauma of weather that doesn't even have the romance to be particularly dramatic. No snow, no storms, not even any great rainfalls to speak of, just a drizzle-like depression made weather, a light that turns everything monochrome.
Despite the fact the days are getting longer, it always seems to be on the verge of getting dark.
I leave the house later than intended - 3:00pm - again on that dismal verge. I consider going to the studio, but I think of the cold, the damp, and soon reconsider.
I head to Tescos instead to buy dinner.
After Tescos I give Andrew a call. He's in Hove Library - I meet him there, and we soon head off to Revival for coffee. I decide to break into the sketchbook - the notebook - the journal - whatever it is - I still don't know - this book of lost days and draw the empty corner of the back room of the cafe over Andrew's right shoulder. Interiors are hard to draw - too many angles, too many things to get wrong. It's a start anyway, and at least I have started. I meant to start last week, but the main sympton of this mild virus of the last ten days has been a kind of heavy indolence; ennui mixed with headaches, and restless dreams that seep into the day. As I draw, we talk about Doctor Who, growing older, moving house and people we once worked with.
No-one comes into the back room of the cafe. I can hear the cafe assistants talking about music. There's only a couple of other customers. Before we know it a couple of hours of passed, and it is 5:30pm. We head out into the too familiar dark, and go our separate ways home.