Trees
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Garden Café
Toome Hill Park is surrounded by buildings that belong to Tartu University. I’m not sure whether this cafe is also part of the university too – although my guess is probably not. We visited slightly out of season, so this place was closed when we saw it, but as a haven of peace in the…
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Tallinn’s Towers
Tallinn has many old towers, some of them round and some of them square. For the avoidance of doubt, the one I have drawn here is round, and goes by the name of Kiek In De Kök. Two things in particular caught my eye in this view. The first is that, having just arrived in…
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Work In Progress
We recently went to a wedding celebration in this handsome building on Wandsworth Common. As with many weddings that I have attended over the years, a very good time was had by all. However, I am always aware that any wedding day is only really the beginning of a (hopefully) life-long journey, building a life…
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Avenue of Trees II
We returned to Ichi-Coo Park today, this time in glorious sunshine! I decided to have another go at drawing this lovely avenue of trees, this time using coloured pencils – a medium which I am not that used to. The result is both colourful and “sketchy”, which is actually what I was hoping for. That…
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Three Bridges
I have come across a number of places called Three Bridges. One of these in West Sussex is the source or destination of many of the Thameslink trains that pass through our town. Another in southern Belgium (and therefore in fact called Trois-Ponts) has a superb local beer, quite the find of that particular trip!…
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Lantern
These platform lanterns are to be found at many temples in Japan, particularly Buddhist temples. I understand that they are full of symbolism, but that aside they are also visually very interesting, plenty of detail, sturdy yet graceful. Of course the temptation is always to feature the temple itself in any picture, but here I…
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View of London …
… from Reigate Hill. Hence quite a distant view, in which only the tallest buildings in the city feature. Some would say that London looks better from this distance, although I wouldn’t agree – there are some very nice sights right in the centre of town. However, I rather liked the way that the horizon…
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Sakura (桜)
Cherry blossom is appearing all over Japan at the moment, and I’m lucky enough to be seeing it happen. Admittedly most of the blossom I have seen so far has been set against leaden grey skys, so this picture is something of a concept piece – how I imagine the trees would look in front…
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All Flat & Wide
These flat-crowned trees were a common sight during my recent safari experience. Other (to my eyes more normally proportioned) trees were more abundant, but because these flat trees tended to stand on their own they were much more noticeable. In pictures of the African bush these trees often appear as silhouettes, so it seemed natural…
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Christmas Tree
The corner of this earth that I call home is awash with these things at this time of year. Often they are very pretty, occasionally they are rather garish, only rarely are they disappointing. The tree on which this painting is based was (and almost certainly still is at time of writing) in Place Kléber,…
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Begijnhof
This peaceful courtyard is to be found in Bruges, a place I have visited, painted and drawn many times. This tranquil place originally housed a community of lay women called beguines, and still today it is home to a community of Benedictine nuns and other likeminded women. I’m not sure that my painting really captures…
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Hohenschwangau
There is a very pretty castle at Hohenschwangau (and of course another fairytale castle nearby called Neuschwanstein) – but this is the view from the castle, looking out over a swan (schwan to the locals) fountain – one of many swan motifs in the castle grounds. I had intended this to be just a pen…
