God did that
I made a painting a few weeks ago – an experiment with pattern that quickly descended into a brown mess. Revisited it this week thinking it had the bones of a Gothic cathedral in there somewhere. It’s strange how these things turn out – I sometimes think painting from memory and the imagination gets you closer to something more authentic.
We managed another stint of our Big Walk West this week. This time along the Clwydian Range following Offa’s Dyke. We got our first glimpse of the sea, which was very exciting, and passed through the hamlet of Sodom, but didn’t see anything untoward. Rhyl is coming up on the next leg, so that’s probably our best bet for spotting some debauchery (watch this space).
120km down, 40km to go.
O Nuit d’Amour by Walter Sickert is a favourite of mine and remarkably (for me, at least) it’s owned by Manchester Art Gallery, although I’ve never seen it on display there.
They say you learn a lot from copying the masters and I feel like I did with this one. The reproduction below is actually darker than the copy I worked from, so the subtlety is a bit lost. But the challenge, and the joy, was in determining the various colours in the darks – the low saturation but dark tones are hard to get right but worth sticking at. Kind of feels like you’re unlocking some of the mystery of painting.
Lost property
An update from last week. I’ve now lost my replacement wrist warmers (as featured in last week’s newsletter) as well as the originals, a woolly hat and – weirdly – one slipper. It might be reasonable to blame the dog given that I took him to the vet this week to be vomit-induced after eating a bar of dark chocolate he stole from my apron.
One hundred and fifty-nine
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I lived on the 159 route for a period of time in the noughties – first Brixton Hill and then at the very end of the route in Streatham Hill. The night bus home could be long but my memory is that Routemasters were always such a pleasure to ride. Hoping on and off gave you the freedom to get off and just walk whenever the traffic ground to a halt. I may have dodged the odd fare once or twice.