Travel lines

Travel lines -- drawn, or written, while travelling on London Underground and local trains. The writing implement moves across the page while the train is travelling, pausing while the train is at a station. The variation in the lines is the result of a collaboration between the writer and the train as it is driven over track that may have been laid 100 years ago and repaired at intervals since.

The drawn line marks every moment spent in motion, unmemorable as those moments may be; moments distinguished, however, by the alterations to the lines.



Sketching the Line


Riding in the Rain
29.5cm x 63cm
Prepared paper, water, graphite
Written on the Victoria Line and Great Northern Trains

Emotion Recollected in Tranquility
29 cm x 45 cm
Prepared bristol board
Written on the Victoria Line

There and Elsewhere
19.5 cm x 24.5 cm
Prepared paper from a book of sermons published in 1738
Written on the Picadilly Line

Written on Water, Written on Sand
19.5 cm x 80 cm
Prepared paper from a book of sermons published in 1738
Written on the Picadilly Line


Gone Shopping
42 cm x 45 cm
Till receipts prepared with gesso; graphite, water-soluble graphite
Written on the Victoria and Central lines


Working process

A stock of papers were prepared by coating them with gesso. Writing is with soluble graphite on paper that is wetted with a water-brush when the train stopps at each station. During travel, writing is continuous and, as much as possible, at the same speed.

Work in progress, water and soluble graphite (Bakerloo line, stationary and moving)


Written on buses

Cold Comfort
25 cm x 36.5 cm
Orange wrapper coated with gesso; water, graphite
Written on the W7 bus, travelling over the hill that was the terminal moraine of glaciers in the most recent Ice Age


Sketchbook Project

2012 - "Writing the lines", travelling along all Underground lines, July 2011 to January 2012 - http://margaret-cooter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/sketchbook-project-2.html

2011 - 94 journeys on 42 days, 2 June to 3 September - https://www.sketchbookproject.com/library/4283
and



"Travel lines" printed fabric


Tool rolls and tote bags - www.travel-lines-london.co.uk/