Painting in Chocolate Café Canterbury

Some progress with the painting of the interior of Chocolate Café Canterbury, trying to develop the atmosphere there.

Here are photos of the beginning or this painting which I think was a bout a fortnight ago, much more difficult than painting cathedrals.

And here are today’s before and afters of Canterbury Cathedral, not much as the light went not long after I started.

Canterbury Cathedral watercolour painting, spot the difference

Here are the before and after photos of the Canterbury Cathedral watercolour painting, today.

I did have a late breakfast in La Trappiste before repairing to Chocolate Cafe to do a bit more to the Cathedral painting.

Spot the difference with the Ramsgate Harbour Arches watercolour and a bit more painting.

This was lunch time today at Miles Café Culture in Ramsgate about an hour and a half about a third of which was obscured by a parked lorry.

This one was when I was technically speaking shopping this evening

 My attention became retrieved by a Churchillian gesture

   This one in a cafe yeasterday

Oh and work today http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/for-love-of-peanuts-in-bookshop.html

Alison Fewster at The York Street Gallery in Ramsgate

The current Exhibition  is by Ramsgate Artist Alison Fewster The exhibition runs  25th November - 2nd December Exhibitions change weekly on Wednesdays.

Ramsgate Sprint Revival will not be going ahead for 2016 following a decision by Thanet District Council.

The Council has confirmed that land hire for the 2016 Ramsgate Sprint Revival dates has been granted to Lark in the Park, a community event provided by churches in Thanet. Despite an application for the 2016 sprint being made just 10 days after the 2015 event, senior management at the Council have confirmed that the decision has been made on a first come, first served basis and that consideration of community benefits was not part of the process.

Generally acclaimed as one of the best events in Ramsgate for many years, the Sprint Revival brought together a varied programme of attractions for all ages including the return to Ramsgate of vintage motorcycle sprinting, live music, fairground and Wall of Death motorcycle stunt show. The event can also be shown to have generated £350,000 for the economy.

Key to the success was a “window of opportunity” in the motorcycle calendar when the event could come together at the historic Ramsgate venue. Event organisers have been unable to find suitable alternative dates.

There is a petition on the TDC website  but with the signing on to the TDC website for me, having signed on the website said my sign on had failed but when I clicked on the link http://democracy.thanet.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?id=87 to sign on again I found I was actually signed on. I then got a message saying there was an unsupported plugin on the page, however it still let me sign the petition and confirmed that I had signed it.

I took a few pictures of the last sprint, which will expand if clicked on, feel free to use any you want to support this campaign, here is the link http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/a-few-more-photos-of-ramsgate.htmll

and http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/a-few-photos-of-ramsgate-motorcycle.html

Breakfast and more of the watercolour of Ramsgate Harbour Arches at Miles Café Culture and work at bookselling.

A nice morning his morning, nothing parked in my way and about an hour and a quarter from 8am until I had to go off to work in my bookshop for 9.30.

So here is the watercolour of Ramsgate Harbour Arches from Miles Café Culture

and as you can see all done over civilised coffee, toast and marmalade.

Here is yesterdays work in my bookshop in terms of the books that went out on the shelves yesterday http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/food-fit-for-pharohs-and-hieroglyphic.html this should be enough to keep on top of the books going out.

The issue/problem however you like to see it, is the fall in book prices over the last ten years, means we have to sell a great deal more in terms of quantity, this added top looking every book up online to make sure the shop price is cheaper than customers could buy the same book online, well it’s a lot of work.

Painting Ramsgate Harbour Arches from Miles Café Culture today, the before and after pictures and stuff.

Here are the before and after today’s work on the watercolour of Ramsgate Harbour Arches from Miles Café Culture.

I took a two hour lunch break so about an hour and a half painting and eating antipasti and drinking coke cost about £11

 Not long after I started a lorry parked in the way

So I did the bit I could see through the lorry's window

This was the situation before the lorry parked there so you can see the gap is/will be a white mast

Canterbury Cathedral Watercolour Painting, spot the difference and paining people’s faces small enough to fit into watercolour paintings.

I didn’t get as much time in Canterbury today as I would have liked, we didn’t get there until about 1 o’clock and by 3.30 the light inside the café wasn’t really strong enough to see what I was putting on the paper properly.

I rather like the concept behind this picture, which was to draw a very loose sketch and then put the detail on it afterwards.

Anyway here are the before and after pictures of the watercolour of Canterbury Cathedral from The Chocolate Café in Canterbury today.

The business of painting people is much more difficult than the business of painting buildings, unless of course you are happy painting from a photograph, which I am not and painting people’s faces in a fairly small size, using watercolour is tricky.

Anyway I wound up doing this pretty much in the dark, so the likenesses could be better, I could see the people I was painting properly, but not the paper well enough to distinguish colours. Hence the porcelain doll problem, I just couldn't distinguish a pale flesh wash from plain water.

It got progressively darker from left to right with the one on the furthest to the right I could't see much in the way of shades at all 

Watercolour sketching in Margate today, Sands Hotel, Bernie’s Chocolate Café and Turner Contemporary Café.

This watercolour sketch is from The Sands Hotel in Margate

By way of explanation, one of the smoke alarms in my bookshop started making beeping noises indicative of a flat battery at 5am.

Having found the culprit and disarmed it

I tried to make coffee and realised the noise I was making trying to get last nights out of the wosisname was bad

I walked across the kitchen to get a spoon to dig it out, when the coffee fell out, high on caffeine I repaired to Margate, where

me being somewhat inconvenient after the coffee The Sands Hotel was the only place open and comes highly recommended for an early breakfast in Margate.

on to Bernie’s Chocolate Café where I did a bit to the painting I started the other week

on to Turner Contemporary, where I was handed a leaflet about all the stuff going on there today "Live in the Gallery" including "T S Eliot Margate and Madness" and being terrified that I would engage in some way, I went to Turner Contemporary Café where I was disturbed by

this label on a granite block but eventually got my stuff out ready to paint and had just roughed in the shape of the inside of the cafe, 

when a gallery attendant appeared and asked me if I wanted to make my confession, I explained that I was a bishop of The Church of Aphrodite and that after the Hyde Park festival I wan't going to make a confession either there or later in court

my painting then moved forward in the spirit of The Draughtsman's Contract, vide beauty spot and perhaps not,

  back to Bernie’s Chocolate Café, and up the stairs in previous picture of Bernie’s Chocolate Café, above, from which vantage point, also above I painted

 just in time

  

I had done so much work in my bookshop yesterday that the railway and ship books I processed yesterday seem to have leaked onto today's bookshop blog http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/yes-more-railway-books-available-at.html