Peninsula Portraits
The young Italian illustrator Valeria Weerasinghe came to London to study and fell in love with the city’s street life. “I like to do quick sketches of people, to capture their gestures,” says Weerasinghe, who recently graduated from Central St Martins’ character animation course.
She drafted out the initial drawings for these images around and about Greenwich Peninsula, where she lives. “I saw this family down by the river, admiring the sunset,” she says of the work above. “I think they were admiring the boats.”
“I caught sight of this guy around by the station,” says Valeria. “There’s always someone around there, walking about with a Peninsulist tote bag. I sketched him quickly and tried to memorise everything I couldn’t get down. It’s pretty accurate, though I sometimes develop a sighting into a character all of my own.”
"I gaze around, see people and create them in my own colours, in my head." – Valeria Weerasinghe
“I saw these two chatting on a table at Craft,” says Valeria. “I like how girls interact with one another; they're always very expressive. They may not have been wearing those exact clothes, of course. I gaze around, see people and create them in my own colours, in my head.”
