Views
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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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Madrasa
I had previously understood a madrasa to be a place that provided Islamic instruction, but in amongst the potted history of Uzbekistan that I picked up on a recent tour, I have come to realise that throughout much of their history madrasas taught quite a range of subjects, just like the old colleges here in…
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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…
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Alpine Meadow
The countryside around Füssen, near the southern edge of Germany, has much to recommend it. There are green rolling hills dotted with many picturesque lakes (mainly in Germany), there is the ever present backdrop of the mountains (mainly across the border in Austria), and of course there are the fairy tale castles of Neuschwanstein and…
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Surviving a Drought?
This image is a nonsense of course, not only because waterlilies would never survive these conditions nor “float” on the dried lakebed, but also because the composition was conceived during a long period of hot and dry weather (yes – even in England we have at times too much sun!) but drawn and painted as…
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Iron Gates
My art group made another visit to Ichi-Coo Park today – this time in glorious sunshine! Here is one of the sketches that I made there this afternoon – this one done on the iPad using the “charcoal” drawing tool. I hadn’t realised at the time that I had left the colour set to a…
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Flowers at Wisley – Again
There really are an awful lot of flowers at Wisley, so I don’t feel too bad about having another go at painting some of them. The Royal Horticultural Society have some stunning formal flowerbeds in their garden at the moment, but just like last time I have chosen to paint some of their “wild” flowers…
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Galata Tower
The Galata Tower in Istanbul is now almost 700 years old. Today it dominates a hillside otherwise covered in a jumble of more modern and more modest buildings, the tower still offering the views it was designed to give over the city and the surrounding crossroads of land and sea routes. In my head (weird…
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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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Wooded Path
Some places seem to me quite special, magical even, and this is one of them. This path leads up to Reigate Hill, and I sometimes follow it when I walk up that hill from my house. I don’t always take this path however, partly so as not to lose the sense of wonder that this…
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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…
Doodling ... 