The Camden Market Free Art Man 20th June 2026

We’re in for another heatwave in London.

Yesterday wasn’t too bad when I filmed this episode of The Camden Market Free Art Man, but today is forecast to be much hotter. Usually I’d consider staying at home in this heat but next weekend is forecast for rain, so I’d better suffer in the heat today to make up for next week's likely no-show.

As I was packing up I managed to get rid of the last of my available Camden on Canvas series. I might have accidentally given away some of the unavailable ones, as I was up in the attic earlier this morning and didn’t see any. I always keep the first few of any series, but think in my rush to get ready and out the door in the mornings, I might have chucked the keepers in the Camden Market laundry bag and given them out. Never mind. It’s good to have some diamonds in the rough. Like you used to get in charity shops before the internet was around for the volunteer workers to check everything on. There’s not so many happy surprises in charity shops and car boot sales anymore. The Camden Market Free Art Man is the antidote to all this modern regressive progress.

Another hour long Camden video. YouTube seems not to like these as my views have plummeted recently. Even some of my shorts are struggling to make it up to double figures. Meanwhile cats falling into hedges continue to go viral. This was a point of discussion at the last Black Ivory podcast with Emma Pugmire and I in London and @ronthroop Ron Throop in Oswego, USA. I’ve also been talking about improvements to The Camden Market Free Art Man with Alan the Camden town crier. We’ve agreed on a revised cardboard display on the main plinth.

At the moment, I’m putting up lots of scrappy looking cardboard sheets that don't look very good. Next week, if it doesn’t rain, I’ll have just two big boards each side that cover the area better, are more colourful and have more text and Blond Card style images. Like full colour newspaper on the wall. Advertism heavy and hopefully a lot more photogenic. Both Zombie and Alan outdo me on being more photogenic and subsequently I’m missing out on a load of free promotion on passers-by social media accounts. Camden is an attention economy, as I guess is almost everything else essentially. If I had done The Camden Market Free Art Man throughout my teens instead of going to school I would have had a much better education.

There’s some footage of The Arsenal Man in yesterday’s Camden video. He’s often around the bridge, but passes through more than hangs around. I’d like to stop and talk to him one day and maybe make a Blond Card of him. I also need to do a painting of Camden Lock Bridg for Tina and Pat. They regularly pass by and have at least one of my paintings already. Tina came up on her scooter yesterday and specifically asked for it. About 2 foot square that I’ll make a series of on cardboard. Tina and Pat used to sell clothes at Camden Market and still live local. Their daughter’s getting the Camden Lock bridge painting, as will future visitors to my display. Not sure how I’ll paint it yet but I like the idea of getting all these characters and landmarks recorded as they are now. The videos do this too. Maybe one day they’ll paint over Camden Lock Bridge.

Bigger canvas paintings will be coming to Camden soon to be given away. They’re too big to sell online as the cardboard packaging I get on the streets before the bin collectors do is seldom wide enough. I’ll take the big paintings offline today and fill up both my shops with more smaller ones. At the moment I’m only selling to the UK as I’ve had some problem customers abroad, specifically in the US and the EU, true to form, have just announced their latest batch of unnecessary and counter-productive red tape requirements for small businesses and sole traders to have to deal with. Yet another thing making retirement to Thailand look so much better.