Location
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Plaça Nova
Despite the name. Plaça Nova (New Square) is rather old, as are several of the buildings around it. However, this view is looking resolutely the other way at the newer buildings, in particular the building of the Architects’ Association of Catalonia, which sports a large Catalonian themed frieze designed by Picasso (which I have rather…
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Flamingos
I have seen flamingos several times in bird parks and zoos, but I had always understood that they were native to some far-flung and exotic continent, like Africa perhaps, or one of the Americas. So it was quite a surprise to see them in the wild on the coast near Montpelier. I know they are…
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Walled Garden
A walled garden is usually a haven of peace, and often contains a variety of colours and textures to entertain the eyes. I think I have captured a bit of each of these aspects here, but I am sure that more could have been done. The choice of watercolour as a medium helps with the…
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Back Door
I’m really not sure about this one! The original pen drawing was done in the back garden of a cottage in Longtown, more or less an exercise in capturing perspective and different textures. So far, so good – except that the original drawing is rather pedestrian. Therefore, as I have already done with other so-so…
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View from Chartwell
Chartwell was the family home of Winston Churchill, who as well as being a renowned wartime leader was also a prodigious artist – indeed many of his paintings are on display at the house and in various outbuildings in the grounds. I think that here I have managed to pick a view from a window…
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Dunster Yarn Market
Just down the hill from Dunster Castle is the village, which contains a very fine 17th century Yarn Market. Given the weather that we had when we first arrived in Dunster I can only imagine this building was erected primarily to keep the cloth in the market dry! The angles of this building seemed well…
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Dunster – Entrance
A stone archway can often be relied upon to make a good frame for a picture, as long as there is something interesting visible through the arch. In the case of the entrance into Dunster Castle (or more precisely the exit as this is the vista as one leaves the castle!) the view through the…
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Girona – at High Speed
Girona is a beautiful old city. It is a place apparently well known as the backdrop to a series of “Game of Thrones” – a popular drama series that I have never seen, but which apparently many others have enthusiastically watched. Girona is also on a high speed train line from Barcelona, with an ultramodern…
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Stained Glass – Christ Church
A while ago we showed some American friends around Oxford. Their reaction to all the old buildings was of course quite predictable, but what I hadn’t expected was that their awe would also make me appreciate again buildings that had become all too familiar. One of these, the cathedral in Christ Church, was an oasis…
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Stained Glass – Sagrada Familia
I can’t quite decide whether this painting is okay or not! On the one hand it definitely doesn’t capture the vibrant colours in the glass that my eyes saw at the time and that my camera captured for posterity. On the other hand, it is quite a pleasant picture to look at, and it does…
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Bruges – Heilige Geeststraat
I don’t recall ever seeing a road in the UK named “Holy Ghost Street” – nor indeed anywhere else in my travels. However, rather than declare this to be an unusual name for a road and assume that this is a particularly Belgian thing, I am quite willing to admit that perhaps I just have…
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Flamenco – Sacromonte
There appears to be a debate – heated at times – as to where flamenco music and dance originated. One of the early places where flamenco was to be found in the caves of Sacramonte near Granada, where the gypsies lived. These days those caves have been sanitised and host nightly flamenco shows for tourists,…
Doodling ... 