Pen
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Sundial
Sundials work better on some days than others. This one in the gardens at Polesden Lacey was working on the day that we saw it, for the simple reason that the sun was shining. Curiously however it was not quite showing the correct time – even after making allowance for the fact that our watches…
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Siding – Shenfield Station
Shenfield is a commuter town on the train line out of Liverpool Street in London, and happens to be where I grew up. Today the town has become one the the endpoints for the shiny new Elizabeth Line, but not so long ago this decrepit guard’s van was also to be seen in a siding…
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St Michael’s Church – Betchworth
Another place where our art group meets to draw and paint in the open is Betchworth, and one obvious thing to concentrate our artistic endeavours on is the parish church. This is a quintessential rural parish church building that found recent fame as one of the film locations for the film “Four Weddings and a…
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Murano – Canale San Donato
Venice is lovely, but quite intense. The nearby islands of Murano and Burano offer a respite of calm – both the building and the tourist density on these islands is noticeably lower than the slightly misnamed “Serenissima”. This painting is fairly faithful to the photo that I took during our visit to Murano, in that…
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Fünf Höfe, Munich
I was rather taken with the greenery hanging from the ceiling, and indeed with the view and colours of the whole space. I suspect that I was supposed instead to have been taken by the range of shops, but getting me interested in shopping is not easy, as my wife will readily attest! I think…
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Spotlight
This is my first attempt to draw on black paper. I used a white pen, so one might imagine that the approach is basically the reverse of the more normal black-pen-on-white-paper drawing skills that I have been honing. So for example, the pen has to mark highlights rather than shadows. It turns out that things…
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Avenue of Trees
Another drawing from Ichi-Coo Park, this one from a visit made last summer, when the weather was dry enough that we were able to sketch in the open. The park has many dramatic perspectives, and this one funnels towards a fantastic set of wrought iron gates, although they are rather lost in this sketch as…
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Cart (dilapidated)
This cart is to be found in the delightfully named Ichi-Coo Park on the Surrey/Sussex border. Our trip to that park today was made in typical English summer weather (i.e. it was raining) so our “en plein air” art session risked turning into “plein d’eau”! However, I noticed that a few dilapidated carts had been…
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St Peter’s College
Many, many years ago I was a student here. The college buildings are not stereotypical for an Oxford college, but then the college was only founded in 1929, so a series of gothic quads would be a bit of a surprise! In fact, many of the buildings shown here were built or rebuilt since my…
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Post Pruning
On one level, this is simply a painting of the consequences of a common horticultural procedure – a fresh bud squeezing out from a severely trimmed stump. At a more metaphorical level however, this image seems a bit too personal to spell out in more detail … As regards the artwork – the pen did…
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Stupas at Wat Xieng Thong
Stupas are to be found in most countries in South East Asia. Many of these structures, like those in this painting, are near to Buddhist temples. I have heard varying explanations as to what these stupas are for, ranging from their being repositories for sacred relics through to just being simple memorial stones. In truth…
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Reigate Priory – History
Reigate Priory was originally an Augustinian priory, founded in the 13th century. Following Henry VIII’s dissolution of religious foundations in the 16th century the building became a private residence. The Priory remained a private home until just after the end of the Second World War, when the buildings became a school. Although the extant structure was (re-)constructed after…
Doodling ... 