✍️ 🇬🇧 TUBE TALES ~ The Characters I Sketched on the London Underground

A few of my drawings capturing some interesting characters, awkward encounters and just every day comedy of travelling on the London Tube!

GENERAL INFO

🇬🇧 LOCATION: London, England, UK
🚇 TRANSPORT: London Underground (the Tube)
👀 THEME: Commuters, people-watching & quirky encounters!
😂 HIGHLIGHTS: Everyday characters, random moments & classic London commuter behaviour – seriously, something weird always happens in london!
💭 INSPIRATION: Real-life observations of life underground

Ever wondered what happens on the Tube??

I love people watching and im looking back into my past a bit now…

In 2007 to 2010, while I was living in London, I spent plenty of time traveling on the Tube, I decided to take my sketch book out and start drawing on the tube, back then the mobile phones werent as dominating as they are these days, so people were actually doing other things than looking down at their phones… those were the good times 🙂

I started sketching some fascinating characters around me! There were some people hiding behind newspapers and tourists and locals alike wrestling with the Tube Map on the wall and people getting caught between closing doors! LOL – SO much to sketch in London!

Ok, so I exaggerated a little along the way, lol, but these drawings are based on characters that have been influenced by real people and scenarios that I encountered… trust me, I was never short of interesting people as London is full of them! … ANDDD, I ended up making new friends with a few people looking over my shoulder, bored…

I wonder how much has actually changed these days on the tube?…

There were always men on the corner of the street giving out free “Lite”newspapers or “Metro”newspaper (I think there is no longer “Lite” distribution) every one loves these as it gives them a reason not to look or talk to each other on the tube ~Londoners hate making eye contact so this can be a barrier if you have forgotten your book!

Another thing I saw often was people invading other peoples space while reading their papers and a pissed off look from the person next door!

This guy was selling “The Big Issue” which is a magazine that helps the homeless make some money instead of begging. They buy The Big Issue magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50, its like a small business ~beggars in London can make a lot of money im telling you now, but since I lived there there has been a crack down on begging

Saw this guy waiting at Heathrow Underground Station. There always is some Aussie bloke wearing a singlet sitting on their backpack 🙂

The amount of times I saw someone get squashed between the doors while running onto the tube… even though there is another train ummmm…. 2 mins away, I didnt get (and still dont get) why londoners dont like waiting that 1 or 2 mins for the next one yet jam themselves into the packed tube… we have to wait 15-20min for the next train in Sydney!

You would sometimes see strangers every now and again interacting and checking each other out 😉

Always on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow airport you would see tourists trying to navigate their way through the tube map

Some of the free newspaper “giver-outers” would become violent or angry when people werent taking their papers. I asked around about that and I think they have a quota to make and need to give them out, they also cant just throw them into the bins as they would get in trouble (obviously)

I saw a family struggle with their daughter and its hard because the tube is generally quiet and everyone just sits there and any noise is amplified 5000 fold and it can be quite embarrassing as all eyes are on you and the noise

Yep… ladies hand bags stuck in the door, oh yeah, I saw this a few times, the lady in this drawing was lucky as she pulled her bag out just in time

Oh boy… men and chivalry is GONE… especially in London and in the tube, its seen as a fight and youre basically on your own! I always see older people having to stand as the younger ones sitting either pretend they dont see them or just totally ignore them, this one really bugged me, I just dont get it, I guess it is every man for themselves, so to speak! Just to add also that this was not men only, it was men and women in general…

Side note : to be fair there have been a few good experiences with chivalry but sadly not so many

The faces you see on a packed tube… (the look of “get me out of here”) … and the amount of newspapers to go with it

Struggle with dragging bags up stairs when there arent any escalators in that part, generally there are many escalators and the tunnels are set up really well but the older stations have more stairs and you gotta tackle those head on 🙂

Whatever happened to NO eye contact on the tube? When a cute girl (especially when she is a tourist from an exotic location) hops on the train all non-eyecontact is forgotten, there’s nothing else to look at on the tube anyways, right? lol

That look of lugging back home your Tesco groceries – I know that feeling well (and loved every second of it)

This drawing I didnt get the chance to finish…

2008