Trip to The Tate Britain

Sunday train to London.

Went to London to meet up with my Mum and brother and we ended up going to Tate Britain. Have never been before and was amazed at the scale of this building.

We saw the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition, which was much larger than I expected. Had a huge amount of work on show (drawings, prints and textiles, as well as paintings) and I got to see loads of paintings that I had only seen in books before. Ophelia by Millais had quite a crowd admiring it. In fact, the whole exhibition was extremely busy considering it was such a sunny Sunday.

Then we had a stroll along the Thames in the last of the sunshine. I do love London! I love its history, scale, grandeur and the amazing mix of people. As I walked back to Victoria Station, I passed Westminster Abbey. It was Remembrance Sunday, so there was this most amazing display of thousands of tiny, unassuming crosses outside the Abbey. All the crosses were named with an individual's details and some had photos attached. Made you realised how many people had died fighting and was a very poignant display. Were still lots of veterans about, all wearing their medals.

 

Am going to London again next weekend, so am going to try to squeeze in more drawing time than just the journey!

November sketchcrawl, Brighton

A small group of us met at the new Cafe Coho on Queens Road, Brighton (very convenient for the train station!).

I drew the newsagent opposite. Is typical of a newsagents surrounding a station, selling everything from tourist postcards to bottles of wine.

Inspired me to draw some more of the shops along here. Lots of them are rather scruffy and typical of a transit area. But as there are plans afoot to redevelop this part of town, should capture before it all become too gentrified!

Braving the London sales

Took my daughter to London for the New Year sales.

I love going to London: buying a newspaper and coffee, settling in at a window seat and gazing out of the window as the train travels along. Is even better when I have a model that doesn't mind being blatantly stared at.

Then off the train and there is London itself. I do enjoy living in Brighton, but sometimes I really yearn for the largeness, the grandness, the relentless bustle of London.

I wanted to go to John Lewis to look at their yarn sale and go to Muji to pick up some pens and pads. Clearly my daughter had much more expansive plans, and I soon found myself standing outside a seemingly endless number of changing rooms...

Managed to do the quick drawing below

and then had a great chat with a number of different women, who were standing in the long changing room queue, about drawing: how long have I been sketching, was I self conscious, am I happy to show people my work, did I think anyone could learn to draw...loads of questions! Obviously seeing someone drawing in public is more unusual than I realised!