Interior Challenge

My friend Anna challenged me to paint an interior! This is the Queen's Gallery, part of Buckingham Palace. The gallery is good to paint as the decoration is very bold with fabric covered walls, black marble skirtings and gothic ceilings like being under a giant wedding cake. The paintings are Caletto's views of Rome which I had not seen before.

Aviation Art

Following our visit to the aviation artists display at the Mall Gallery we had a mutual challenge. Alistair would build a model of my choosing and I would do a painting of it. Planes are difficult, although I like the colours and the sky. The plane is a WW1 Fokker Eindecker.

Typical Townhouse

One of my favourite areas of London is the back streets around St James' Park. In between the colossal government buildings are surviving London townhouses from the C18th. This is the typical layout with a railinged basement, the largest windows on the first floor. The colours of brick vary and some are stuccoed to resemble royal icing. Some like this look like two rooms on each floor. To visit one go to Chelsea where you can enjoy the atmospheric Carlyle's House or in Kensington 18 Stafford Terrace. Both are wonderfully unchanged. 

General Doings

I have a glut of tomatoes from the plants on my balcony. Tomatoes are one of my favourite things to draw; the bold colours, simple shapes and spiky er stem bits. These look a bit deflated which is my bad drawing.

In other news the weather has definitely turned to Autumn, which I quite like, it is one of my favourite seasons. 

I am refreshing my autumn wardrobe with more black, a fake leather jacket and a beige mac which makes me look like that woman in Allo Allo. But in a good way. I am trying for a new look which is more sophisticated and darker in tones. Trawling the many charity shops in posh areas where the good stuff is to be found. 

Victorian City

One of my great architectural loves are old train stations. Especially if a bit past their days of glory; sooty, shambolic and chaotic warrens of crowds, pigeons and unexpected beauty.

This is Victoria station built by the Southern Railway Company. A great station of London although blighted by buses, fast food outlets and discarded newspapers. In a gloriously pretentious French Renaissance style and flanked by the equally French and impressive London Chatham Railway terminus and the colossal Grosvenor Hotel. The station was built in 1860 and rebuilt in 1898. Victoria was the main station for trains to Europe until the development of Eurostar and the Orient Express still departs from here. The station is where the hero in The Importance of Being Earnest was discovered and is mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

An obsessive drawing in crabby permanent marker for speed, with ink over.

I may do a series of drawings of London's great train termini.