Street Scenes
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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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Tram
I know we now have trams in England again, but to me the sight of a tram on the streets of a continental European city still feels rather satisfyingly foreign. I was pleased therefore to discover there are many trams in Budapest. This particular unit is running along the “Pest” bank of the Danube, where…
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Two Statues
This unlikely pair are to be found in front of the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest. The rather casual and lanky Attila Jozsef in the foreground was a very popular local poet writing between the 1st and 2nd World Wars. The more classical equestrian statue behind is of Ferenc Rakoczi, who fought against the Habsburgs…
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Box
I have mentioned before about my liking of the box or kei cars in Japan. On my recent visit I was pleased to see they are as abundant as ever on the roads, and the most recent designs are even smarter than before. This one caught my eye early on in the trip – I’m…
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Vittoriosa
The old town of Vittoriosa was once an important place. Originally known as Il-Birgu, it became the headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller when they established themselves on Malta, and following the successful repelling of an Ottoman siege in 1565 it gained the name Città Vittoriosa (Victorious City). Today it is much quieter, and there are…
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Bruges – Steenstraat
Here is another picture of Bruges, this one of a baroque Flemish building that is now a clothes shop on Steenstraat. I have attempted a degree of what I think is called geometric abstraction – and whilst the amount of abstraction that I have achieved is rather limited, nevertheless the overall result is quite pleasing,…
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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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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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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…
Doodling ... 