See No Evil

I went to the graffiti project, smartening up some of the drabbest areas of Bristol's city centre today.  Impressive, ENORMOUS creations and a real party atmosphere to boot, with stalls and DJs.  Here is some idea of what there was to see.

Something Old, Something New

I was clearing out boxes from the spare room, over the weekend, and found some sketches I'd forgotten I had done.  This is a view of the mountains rising up from the coast of Porto Pollença and neighbouring olive trees.

This is a hurried sketch of Potsdamer Platz.  I remember the busy square with many onlookers - quite unnerving.

This afternoon, I went out armed with my sketchpad and forgot all about shopping for groceries.  I ended up having an early supper at The Art House and drew the street opposite.

At the bottom of Nine Tree Hill is a tree, hung with paper cranes :) This shows a great deal of effort and not a small amount of trust.  On reflection they're peace cranes, a gesture after the riots, I guess.

I moved on to the city centre and found these ceramic penguins.  No idea why - the info stand was a beautiful chrome and perspex affair, devoid of any explanation...?

I continued on to the docks, where a painter set up her equipment to paint in front of the Gorilla and Cabot sculptures outside The Arnolfini.  Which sculpture would she paint? - BOTH.

And finally - this was the first time I sketched with my contacts in.  Not a small achievement, as they compensate for distance in my right eye and near vision in the left.  Not ideal, but I was more successful than when I'm using a computer screen, I can tell you!

Cornwall

I spent last week not far from the south coast of Cornwall, also dapped up to the north for regular bodyboarding, which was an addictive, exhilarating experience.  Took my pads and pencils in the hope I could sketch.  The b/w sketches were satisfying, the first colour one (wonky boathouse) was a joke for my companion Siân :)

I bought A Portrait of Robert Lenkiewicz from 'Bookends' in Fowey.  I meant to only go in and tell the owner how fortunate I'd been to see the RWA exhibition after being introduced to ROL's work last September in that very shop - and left £30 lighter.  The book contains b/w photos taken by Dr. Philip Stokes, over a 30 year period of documenting the artist's activities.  I'm fascinated with the shots of Lenkiewicz planning his work, mapping and blocking the canvasses before the fine work begins.  Made me want to return to Bristol and paint!  However, work gets in the way :(