Tuesday 3 April 2012

18 Folgate Street, Spitalfields


Last month I visited 18 Folgate Street in Spitalfields to make sketches for a project set in 1700s London.

The house is like a cross between a museum and a walk-in storybook, and upon entering the rooms you discover them as though their eighteenth century inhabitants had just left moments earlier.

The place has a real atmosphere and felt like being thrown back in time by 300 years - which was just what I was looking for.









Above: a frock coat and tricorn hat, hung on wall.
Right: house of cards and books


With no electricity in the house, lighting is only by candlelight and by the tiny ammounts of natural light coming in through the narrow windows.


Drawing with such little light and with a white pencil on a black surface can be tricky and you don't really know what you're drawing until you look at it in daylight.










Above left: the smoking room; above right: pin board in the front room




Below left: pen and ink version; below right: Mrs Jervis' drawing room


Below left: sketch from front dining room; below right: the drawing room