At 10:30 a.m. on a recent Wednesday in southeast London, the artist Lydia Wood stood next to a dumpster and set up her easel.
She rubbed sunscreen on her neck and sized up her subject: The Lord Clyde, a pub in Southwark, just south of the river Thames, that was built in 1913. Then, for an hour, she drew flat out, her eyes flicking between the tall, tiled boozer and her page.
“Oh wow, that’s so good!” said Emily Finch, 33, a passer-by on an early lunch break.
“Thank you,” Ms. Wood replied. “I’ve got a long way to go.”
That was true in more ways than one. Ms. Wood, 31, is on a mission to draw every pub in London. She has completed about 300, and has about 2,500 left, according to data on the city’s pubs from CGA by NIQ, a research consultancy.
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The artist Lydia Wood is on a mission to draw every pub in London. A self-described “pub person,” she picks her subjects largely at random, zigzagging across the city on instinct and whim.Credit...Ayesha Kazim for The New York Times
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Her project has given her a front seat to fears about the future of pubs in London, which are grappling with rising rents and other pressures.Credit...Ayesha Kazim for The New York Times
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