About the Artist:

In 1903, when Frederick was 19 years old, his life revolved around two major passions, steam trains and architecture. He had realised at an early age that, as far as his future career was concerned, he yearned to become an architect, and he thought a good way of showing any possible employer his potential was to produce a range of sketches of his work, and he would accomplish this by sketching his beloved steam engines.

Frederick finally laid down his pencil in 1908, which was the date of his last drawing. The sketches were then stored away, gathering dust and didn’t manage to see the light of day until he died in 1967, and then his work were handed over to his grandson Barry Vokes. Barry was in his first year of an apprenticeship in the printing industry at the time and wanted to bring these remarkable sketches back to life.

Each aging print has been carefully digitally scanned and then retouched in Photoshop, before going into another programme to finalise the process.

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This is where each drawing was scanned, originally at 600dpi to try and capture as much detail as possible, then tiresome hours spent retouching started.

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The scanned file was opened in Photoshop, and the first attempt to find as much detail in the mid tones began. Because the amount of fading, (both paper and sketch) differed significantly throughout all the sketches. As technology has advanced, we have been able to restore the drawings to the detail that Frederick saw when he first drew them.

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The completed process showcases ten of his drawings, together with Frederick Cole’s signature and the date he drew it. Along with the engine, type & railway applicable to each steam train print we’re selling.

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We hope that after over a century, Frederick can finally have his work admired and be enjoyed by many.