Buildings
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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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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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An Audience
As I spend more time wrestling with my watercolour paints, I have realised that as well as applying ever more colour to the paper it is also possible to remove paint from the surface to lighten an area. This scene was created to experiment with ways of removing paint from certain places to create the…
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Two Doors
These doors don’t really exist. This image popped into my head whilst I was making a rather obvious choice between two alternatives. Now I suppose that contrasting a welcoming light beyond an open door with a locked door guarding an apparently dark room is a rather hackneyed image, but it summed up my thoughts at…
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Tuk-tuk
The roads in Sri Lanka (as in many other countries) seem to be full of these three-wheelers. If you are looking for a lift they are very useful – otherwise they are something to beware of, both for pedestrians and for larger vehicle drivers. The tuk-tuk in the foreground of this painting is driving along…
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Albaycin
This area of Granada is a warren of narrow alleyways, some of which pretend to be fully fledged roads along which cars with scratched sides venture! At night the lighting of these thoroughfares creates many interesting pools of light and corresponding shadows. This drawing is an attempt to capture this lighting effect using charcoal. In…
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Alhambra
This place looks good in any light, but following a tip from a colleague in my art group we ate dinner one evening in a restaurant that overlooks the Alhambra across a small gorge. In doing so we had brilliant views of the site as dusk fell. Whilst my clumsiness with the pallet knife might…
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Cat Temple
In the suburbs of Tokyo there is a curious temple, properly called Daikeizan Gotokuji but popularly known as the Cat Temple. The story goes that a local ruler was invited by a cat into the temple and thereby found shelter from a sudden and violent thunderstorm. In gratitude, the ruler dedicated the temple to the…
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Riverside Lights
On a recent trip to Budapest we took a lamplit walk along this part of the river. Someone has obviously given some serious thought as to how best to light this area, as I don’t think such atmospheric illumination is at all likely to happen by accident! I’m not quite sure what is in the…
Doodling ... 