Location
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Galata Tower
The Galata Tower in Istanbul is now almost 700 years old. Today it dominates a hillside otherwise covered in a jumble of more modern and more modest buildings, the tower still offering the views it was designed to give over the city and the surrounding crossroads of land and sea routes. In my head (weird…
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Gull Escort
Our boat trip on the Bosphorus was escorted by a number of gulls, most of whom flew for ages within a few metres of the boat. Of course, gulls being gulls, this wasn’t exactly an altruistic gesture in their part – several of the passengers on our boat kept throwing pieces of bread to the…
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Wooded Path
Some places seem to me quite special, magical even, and this is one of them. This path leads up to Reigate Hill, and I sometimes follow it when I walk up that hill from my house. I don’t always take this path however, partly so as not to lose the sense of wonder that this…
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Hagia Sophia
This is a remarkable building. It is almost 1500 years old, which is not bad for a building sited in the middle of an earthquake zone! It was for a long time the world’s largest interior space, and the design of this building, in particular its large central dome, effectively became the archetype for the…
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Pergamon
This is a view from the Asclepion of Pergamon towards the Acropolis, which true to its name is on the top of the hill in the background. We visited Pergamon as one of the seven churches mentioned in the Revelation to St John, found at the end of the bible. However, to me one of…
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Sandpit
There are many quarries near where I live. A few of these sites are still being worked, but most are now inactive. In this region (and quite possibly elsewhere too) a disused quarry will tend to turn into a lake, so we have several man-made lakes around here as well. The lake that I have…
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Chion-in (知恩院)
I find it rather odd that the less paint I put on the paper the more effort it takes me to do so. I have long admired those who can seemingly capture the essence of a scene with just a few broad and (apparently) lazy brush strokes, rather than getting caught up as I often…
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Toque Macaque
These monkeys are quite common in Sri Lanka, particularly near Sigiriya where the original photo of this character was taken. These creatures look very sweet and endearing when you first see them, particularly with their quirky hairstyles, but there is a good reason why monkeys have a reputation for mischief. Just a few minutes before…
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Tropical Beach
Loosely based on a photo taken on Mirissa Beach in Sri Lanka, here is another experiment using watercolours and quite a lot of water. Once again my first attempt was too wet, meaning that the background trees grew enormous as they spread over most of the sky! This second version was closer to damp rather…
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Fishing Boats
The fishing boats in Negombo keep different hours to the tourists. We saw some of the boats still at sea whilst we were having breakfast, but by the time we were walking around the town the fishermen were all back to unload their catch, repair their nets etc. The boats were all quite colourful, and…
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Sunset at Galle
Sooner or later I am sure that my watercolour paints will do exactly what I want them to do, but in the meanwhile I have to be content if a watercolour painting bears even a passing resemblance to the image that I have in my head! This sunset is no exception – I was quite…
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Trichromatic Safari
Two things surprised me on a short safari that I took in Sri Lanks to see their native elephants* in the wild: I decided to try a multi-monochrome technique with this picture – “multi” becoming “three” in this case as I perceived three components to the image – the elephant, the onlookers and the forest/grassland…
Doodling ... 