Commuting

Much as I would like to, I don't earn my living through painting.  Instead, I get up at 6 o'clock every morning and make my way up to the bright lights of the city.  Everyone I know who does this journey, complains about it as some time or another (I'm including myself in that list).  But even commuting has it's moments and my next two paintings were my attempt at capturing some of them.

I walk or bus to the station (depending on the weather) and arrive in time to catch the 7:22 train.  There is a point around late October / early November when this part of my commute coincides with sunrise.  I remember when I was in Fiji, I got up early one morning and climbed to the top of a nearby hill to watch the sun rise and it was one of those magical moments that will stay with me for the rest of my life.  Sunrise at Fleet station on a cold November morning is somewhat less magical but I do like the way the light of the sky reflects off the rails.

It takes about 45 minutes to get to Waterloo then it's onto the tube to complete my journey to Canary Wharf.  All through history the religions of the world have built giant temples and cathedrals to remind us of the power and dominance of whichever God it is they want us to worship and I sometimes think the buildings in Canary Wharf are temples to the God of Money.  Love it or hate it, this is an imposing place and I've been wanting to do a painting of it f for a while.  So I was probably the only person on the Isle of Dogs who was quite pleased to walk out of my office one day last week and see big dark storm clouds gathering behind the tower.  The sun was still shining behind me and it reflected of the Citibank building to produce quite an impressive scene.  It wasn't easy to paint though.  This is my second attempt which I'm reasonably happy with although if I was to do it again I might make the sky a bit darker.  Those of you who have used masking fluid will appreciate the number of paintbrushes I got through painting this twice and will understand why I'm unlikely to try a third version.

But dramatic skies are just that, dramatic skies and they can happen anywhere.  What actually makes my commute bearable and at times even enjoyable is the people who share the pain with me.  If you're on this list then these pictures are for you:

• You judge if you're running late by how far down Fleet Road you've got before I overtake you in the morning.
• You're one of the butchers who waves at me when I walk past your shop.
• You catch the same bus as me on the days when I can't be bothered walking.
• You were with me back in October when I suddenly stopped half way across the bridge to take the photo that went on to become picture number one.
• You have identified yourself in picture number one because, well, that's where you always stand so it must be you.
• You meet me on the platform every morning and we put the world to rights on our journey up to Waterloo.
• You are one of the people who sits near us and pretends not to listen in.
• You catch the tube with me every time there is a strike and then spend the rest of your life doing something to do with security in Africa.  I don't believe that you work for Barclays, I think you're a spy.
• You work in my office and occasionally appear on the escalator behind me at Waterloo.  It was a team effort working out who you are.
• You catch the bus home with me in the evening and you think I'm some kind of millionaire...who travels on Fleet Buzz.
• You're wondering where I put the carpark - it's big and ugly and I don't like it so I deleted it along with the people who ride their bikes along the platform in the morning.

Suffolk

It was my Dad's 70th birthday last year.  We spent some time thinking through what we could do as a family and were hoping to find a holiday let somewhere that we could all enjoy.  Around the time of his 69th birthday a friend from work went for a long weekend to The Balancing Barn in Suffolk and sent me a link to the website when he got back.  I was quite impressed and after a bit if discussion with Mum, we decided to go ahead and book.

It looked like such an unusual place in the photographs and when we arrived, it didn't disappoint.  You approach the building from the opposite end to this picture up a long driveway and it looks like quite an unassuming little place on the drive up.  The pitched roof and patio doors look pleasant enough but they don't prepare you for the rest of the place. It really does hang off the side of the hill like this and it is possibly the most amazing building I've ever stayed in.  The room closest to you in this picture is the living room which has a glass floor.  There is a swing hanging off the bottom of the building and you can watch people on the swing through the floor.

We stayed for 4 nights so had plenty of time to explore the area as well as appreciating the building itself.  Those of you who have read previous entries will remember my Beach Hut Bicycle post from last year which was based on the beach huts in nearby Southwold.  That picture made the place look considerably warmer and sunnier than it actually was.  Being February, the biting wind meant it was too cold to spend much time out on the beach.  I remember sheltering behind a building to get a photo of these boats in the hope that I could do a painting of them at a later stage.  I ended up opting for a coloured pencil drawing although I'm half tempted to try another version in watercolour at some point.

My parents are now looking forward to their Ruby wedding anniversary so another family holiday is imminent.  This time will be the Lake District so I have no doubt you'll be seeing a few pictures from that trip coming up soon.

Inner Hebrides

 In September I boarded the night train at Euston in the pouring rain, ready to make my way up to Scotland to visit my sister.  Those of you who have read my Oban post will understand why I expect the horrendous weather to follow me up the country.  Imagine my surprise then when I woke up the next morning to beautiful sunshine.  Waking up on the sleeper train is always a bit of a treat and I enjoyed my breakfast in bed while watching the world go by and it made a great start to a lovely holiday.



We decided that this time round we would explore some of the islands.  We took the boat over to Mull and then on to Iona.  I was spoiled for choice when it came to finding pictures that could later be turned into drawings or paintings.  The ruins of the abandoned nunnery did catch my attention though and when I got home, I didn't waste much time in getting started on this picture.  It's a pencil and chalk drawing done on pastel paper.  The level of detail meant it took ages and there were times when I sat down after work to draw the next layer of bricks and found myself wondering why I thought it was such a good idea to start this in the first place. I'm glad I persevered though as I am quite pleased with the end result and I hope it captures the beautiful but isolated feel of Iona.

Sue lives on Seil Island and the next day we stayed a bit closer to home and headed over to the neighbouring island of Easdale.  This was one of the biggest days in the Easdale calendar as stone skimmers from around the world gathered for the World Stone Skimming championships. I'm told that Easdale is normally a quiet little place with no cars and a close knit community.  Everyone was there on September 29th though, including all three Blue Peter presenters and a full film crew.  It would have been rude not to join in so we signed up and I'm proud(ish) to announce that I came 43rd out of 71 women.  I've got to say, I was amazed at how seriously some of the competitors take this event.  I watched one man sit for hours filing away at his stone so that it could be reduced to regulation size and he would then be allowed to skim it.  Actually, I watched him for about a minute but one of our Blue Peter friends assured me that he had been chipping away at it for hours and who am I to dispute the word of Blue Peter.  All in all, it was a fun day out and a very friendly and sociable place.  Even when it was overrun with people, you could see the peacefulness of Easdale with it's little rows of cottages all centered around a village green.  I'd like to go back some day and see what it's like when the stone skimmers have gone home and life is just happening at it's normal pace.

This final picture is also from Easdale but looking back out across the sea.  Sue tells me this is looking back towards the mainland.  It's from a photo I took towards the end of the day so the sun was quite low in the sky.  After spending so long on the first picture I quite enjoyed doing this one quickly and feels like more of a sketch than a finished painting.  It reminds me of that last evening before I left when we sat in a pub back on Seil enjoying a nice glass of wine and looking at those stunning views.  I don't suppose you could ever get bored of a view like this.

Festive Favourites

So, the advent calendar is out and Facebook is littered with photographs of people decorating their trees.  We are about to rediscover our annual month long obsession with Slade and Wizzard and I'm sitting with a big pile of Christmas cards in front of me ready to be written.  I'm not going to share the designs here until you've all actually receive your cards so instead, I thought I'd get in the mood by revisiting a few old favourites.

These pictures are different to most pictures on my blog because they're not actually places I've been to so they don't have stories associated with them.  Instead, they came from those books people buy you when they come back from a particularly scenic holiday.  Or the ones they get you for Christmas sometimes that list out thousands of places you're supposed to visit before you die.  Although they represent an immense challenge, I do actually quite like those books because they have some lovely pictures in them.

The first picture is (I think) Yosemite which is right at the top of my travel wishlist.  The second one is Banff which is actually somewhere I've been but I never saw this place.  I always think it looks like such a cosy little cabin tucked away in the mountains and a great place to spend Christmas.  I've no idea where the third one is but it looks like lovely snow to ski on - maybe popping back to that cabin afterwards for a vin chaud.

I've reprinted each of these pictures a couple of times over the years because they're three of my personal favourites so I'm sure some of you will recognise them.  I hope you like them as much as I do and enjoy the countdown to Christmas wherever you are.

Angkor Wat

Now I'd love to tell you that my trip to Angkor Wat was driven by a desire to see for myself this truly spectacular piece of history but I'm going to hold my hands up and say that wasn't the case.  In fact I never actually planned to go there at all. The last stop on my backpacking trip was Thailand.  I had planned to be there for about 4 weeks and then fly back home in time for Christmas.  I thought a few weeks soaking up the sun would be just what I needed before facing the delights of a British winter.  However, I was clearly misguided and my preconception that Thailand is a sunny country was quickly set straight.  Sitting in my guesthouse in Bangkok trying to figure out if there was any part of the country where it wasn't raining, I soon came to the conclusion that a change of plan was in order.  There was a poster on the wall of the travel center showing the Angkor Wat temples and a quick check of the corresponding weather forecast confirmed to me that this would be a much sunnier option than the Thai Island resorts.  So seeking out sun rather than culture, I hopped on a plane to Cambodia and the next day I found myself in one of the most incredible places I have ever visited.

Angkor Wat is the largest temple in the world and the 2 days I'd given myself to see it was nowhere near enough.  As you make your way around, it seems like the place is never ending.  Watching the sunset over the main temple at the end of the first day was beautiful but it wasn't the defining moment for me as it is for many people.  It was these little pockets of peacefulness which creep up on you as you come round a corner and find the roots of a tree growing over, around and into a building.  They're slowly destroying the temples these trees, reminding us that no matter how much of a mark we make on this world, nature will wait for us to turn our backs (or fight our wars) and sneak in to reclaim it.  The trees are a part of this place and so far, the preservation efforts appear to strike the right balance retaining the historical monuments and recognizing the beauty of this destructive force of nature.  These drawing were done after I got home based on photographs I took at the time.  Although I'm not particularly experienced in plein air art, I can see the appeal in a place like this.  The idea of spending my day sitting in one of these forgotten little corners with a sketch book and a few pencils is quite an attractive one.

Those of you who have been to Seam Reap will know that it is a place of contrasts.  The aftermath of a brutal war is visible everywhere.  While rich westerners explore this beautiful monument, children chase them around begging for some money to help feed their families.  Victims of landmines watch you from the street as you walk into your air conditioned hotel without a care in the world.  And what really struck me about all of this was how self righteous we all get about it.  Even at the budget end of the hotel market I had a clean room with a fan and mosquito nets but as I sat down for my (substantial) evening meal I heard so many complaints from my fellow travelers about the children at the temple.  Everywhere you went, wealthy tourists (and however much the hard up backpackers dispute this, we were all comparatively wealthy) would warn you not to give them anything as "it only encourages them".  I didn't give them all money - nobody could do that.  But I did buy little bracelets and trinkets from them.  And I played along with one girls highly imaginative exchange rate scam.  She approached us over lunch on our first day and asked my friend where she was from.  "France" was the reply.  "Do you have any coins from France?" said the girl, "I've never seen one".  "Sure" said my friend and gave her a Euro.  Next she turned to me and asked the same questions.  I told her I was from England but I didn't have any English money on me.  "Could you change this for me?" she says, producing a 20p coin.  "Someone gave it to me and I can't spend it here".  I was amused by this little money making scheme and gave her a good rate of exchange for her efforts.  She was a bright girl who had memorised where each coin came from and who, with a different start in life, could do very well for herself on an FX Trading desk!

Beach Hut Bicycle

In celebration of his 70th year, my Dad recently undertook the epic challenge of cycling 1000 kilometers in a tour of Lakes and Cakes that lasted 2 1/2 weeks and took him from Hampshire through Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincolnshire.  I'm not going to write the full story as he documented his progress in his own blog which you can read here: http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog/nick.keeley43/1/tpod.html

In honour of this tremendous achievement, I decided a picture was in order so here's his bike leaning against one of the Southwold beach huts.  Southwold was a particularly significant stop along the way.  This is where we celebrated his birthday as a family earlier in the year (more pictures of that trip to follow) and it's also where my Mum met him for a well earned rest day.   

The beach hut itself came from one of my photos from our family holiday.  I liked the way this hut was painted and I thought it would be particularly pretty on a nice sunny day so I've modified the weather a little from the freezing cold February day when we were there.  The bike is Dad's bike from one of his photos on his trip.

I'm breaking with tradition a little here as I don't normally share these pictures until after they've been printed as Christmas cards at the end of the year but I want your feedback on this one so you're getting a preview. It's a coloured pencil drawing which didn't scan particularly well so I've photographed it instead.  I set out to do this as a pen and pencil drawing but I found that I quite liked the half way stage before I had added the ink details and now I can't decide which version I'll print.  So my question to you is which do you prefer - version one which is the pencil only one or version two which is pen and pencil?

Looking Out My Window - Winter

Winter seemed to last for a long time this year.  After the Autumn leaves had all been cleared away by our helpful gardener, we settled into those months of short days and long nights.  The view in winter can feel a bit unchanging at times.  We get a lot of those grey drizzly days where the colour just seems to drain away from the whole place.  We also had a lot of rain but rain is surprisingly hard to paint so I opted for the grey drizzle instead.  The only real colour in this picture comes from the grass and the cars.  I do like the way the trees in the park fade away in the background in this sort of light though.  It got me thinking that it might be nice to do some misty woodland scenes at some point.

It's not all rain though.  We get quite a few of those bright frosty days and of course, the occasional dump of snow.  Being in the South of England we don't get a lot of snow but every now and then it descends in a blanket overnight (a bit like those Autumn leaves did a few months ago) and covers everything in sight.  I don't think it matters where you are in the world, a covering of snow transforms a place.  Being British, we like to complain about how it has stopped us getting our cars out and then we whinge about how South West Trains never seem prepared for this sort of thing and wonder why cant they run trains in the snow like other countries.  But I like it.  The lack of trains gives me a day away from the office and apart from that, what's not to love - it looks amazing.  I particularly liked the way the wind blew the snow onto the side of the trees so, for few hours, even the trunks were covered in a winter blanket.