Canterbury Chocolate Café Reflections Watercolour Painting

A bit more progress with the Canterbury Chocolate Café reflections watercolour painting.

With the sun out I did manage to photograph what I have been trying to paint in Canterbury the last few Sunday afternoons, although what the camera sees is very different to what you can actually see with your eyes from this view.

I didn’t get a lot done today as got a bit distracted by the food. 

The other interesting bit of Canterbury info is the Waterstones bookshop in St Margaret’s Street is to close and the Rose Lane branch will go back to three floors as it was when it was Ottakers Bookshop.

As far as I can see this will reduce the amount of space general bookshop space in Canterbury to about a third of what it was, there is an irony here as my bookshop in Ramsgate is much busier than it has been for years.

This link takes you to the pictures of the books we put out on the shelves yesterday http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/thames-sailing-barge-in-bookshop.html    

The way I measure general bookshops I would say in terms of range, particularly with literary fiction, art, transport and history, Waterstones in St Margaret’s Street Canterbury is the closest to my bookshop here in Ramsgate among the bookshops in east Kent. I have to say that this is not good news for retail bookselling in this area.    

Watercolour painting in Chocolate Café Canterbury legs

A bit more progress with the Canterbury watercolour painting, I wanted to be looking down on the legs under the tables and for a bit I leant around my table looking at people’s legs, which didn’t seem to work. Why? Well there were chairs in the way, for one thing. In the end I looked out of the window, down onto the people sitting outside La Trappiste – the café opposite and painted their legs, obviously as I painted the top half of the people last week, so I want going to get the same peoples legs this week. I suppose there is a sense in which it hasn’t quite worked but then legs in cafés do sometimes have a bit of a life of their own – sometimes.     

Chocolate Café Canterbury painting progress

The idea for this watercolour done from upstairs inside Chocolate Café Canterbury is to get half the painting inside the café and half of the view out of the window. The most difficult part being getting the same seat in what is a very busy café.

Anyway some of the people in the café got painted in today, people come and go in a busy café and they move about a fair bit, which makes it interesting.

I think the foreground will be mostly tables and chairs or perhaps tables with legs underneath, I think something like view down into the street where the perspective falls away more than in the rest of the picture.

Any ideas appreciated, the paper is a bit smaller A4 and not good quality, so once it’s marked it stays marked.

 These two photos are to help readers appreciate the suffering I have to endure paining from this position, they should expand if clicked on. 

Canterbury sketch of La Trappiste from Chocolate, well nothing much.

As you can see from the Canterbury picture I should have started with the paper the other way – portrait instead of landscape – an easy mistake, but then one learns from mistakes.

I also started with pen in the top left corner – should have been paint I think now, wrong shades of green, hand wasn’t in, brain not engaged type of thing, thumb too, one of those days.

Perhaps I will go back and start again with the pad turned round.

As I have already painted this part of the cathedral from upstairs in Chocolate Café, pic above I can probably copy it and fill in this bit at home.

I spent most of the day in Canterbury buying books, this 1865 guide to Folkestone being the star item.

I won’t post up all the books I bought today as they will apper on my bookshop blog http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/ when they get priced and put out in my bookshop here in Ramsgate.

Painting pictures in Margate at Bernie’s and Canterbury at Chocolate Cafe, with chocolate and tiffin, while revisiting misspent my youth.

This last week, has been one of those weeks, my misspent youth caught up with me in a way that meant I felt I had to contact some old friends from the 60s and 70s, who I had lost touch with.

As I am what I euphemistically call 59 and a great many of my friends from back then were older than me, euphemistically 69 – not that sort of 69 – quite a few of them transpired to be pushing up daisy’s. So there have been a few. Wahts? Well I suppose if you are expecting it, confirmations rather than shocks.

This means that when I have taken time out I have gone to the cafés which I think have the best atmosphere and painted myself into relaxation. This is a bit like when you paint a floor and don’t finish at the door, but manage by luck to arrive by the window, on the ground floor and step through it into a nice day.

Yesterday I went to Margate, I wanted to look at Michael Blaker’s exhibition again, I like his work so much that I would go up to London to look at it, yea I took the photos, but not the same thing. I also discovered that although you can’t photograph the “Risk Exhibition” at Turner Contemporary you can photograph the labels in the exhibition, and as there is no exhibition catalogue, my remit was to photograph the labels so that I can go around the exhibition and sketch them to produce a catalogue.   

So off we go you and me, the 500 or so people who read this blog every day according to the page counter, hold my hand. Puctures will enlarge if clicked on compulsively.

 Breakfast @ Bernie's Chocolate Bar Margate I was too tender for anywhere else.

 Vincent's Tea pot Don McLean?

 While on the subject of music they played "Aquarius" last time i was in there. and while humming along to this is the dawning.. it dawned on as it would anyone who bought the album in - oh no not 69 again - in the way that it does if you are used to the tracks on an album that something extraordinary could happen.

This time they played Devilgate Drive, well I thought Suzi Quatro had been banned from cafes after the incident with the tight trousers and the chain. I tried unsuccessfully not to enjoy it, well now you know; it's the atmosphere.

Popping pictures on a wall that could be a ceiling is tricky as things can flip in one permanent and boring dimension.   

Things seem to be OK so far, hope to get back there soon.

Next a few Margate photos.

 Volvo 142 very rare car.

 In Turner Contemporary, where you are allowed to take photos. And aren't allowed to paint, no fluids, "Perhaps you could lick the brush." "Perhaps you could lick it for me, my dear."

This last one really needs a sign on it saying. "This is Not an Art Exhibit" I had me fooled.

M&S in the evening, I made the best of the cafe without. What?

Today Remembrance first, picture at top of post, says what I want to say.

Then Chocolate Cafe in Canterbury.

 Here is the tiffin

 These are the prelims to populating the picture with people, the artistic trick may be arranging two boy and girl couples at tables offset, one behind the other so that either the two girls or the two boys look like they may or may not be about be about to kiss, when you first glance at the picture. Then when you look at it again, you realise that they are not even opposite each other.

Friday Ramble

The Manston Airport cpo saga finally seems to be over, the main stumbling block was the same one that stops most property deals.

In layman’s terms and with a lot of guessing, here is how I see the series of events.

A very large foreign company own an airport which isnt showing a profit and this looks bad on their balance sheet.

This is perceived as being detrimental to their company image something that is probably costing them millions of pounds a year, in terms or investor credibility, overall share price and borrowing costs.

They want to dispose of this airport in a way that means there will be no adverse publicity for their company, therefore it has to be disposed of to another large company, that can’t go into liquidation and is guaranteed to take any flack should the airport have to be closed.    

Irate employees who have made redundant, airport supporters if such people exist, unpopular redevelopment of the site were all mud that if slung, would have been very expensive to a company with an annual turnover of billions.

The easiest part of this to understand is that for a company with running debt of over NZ$1bn or 1,000,000,000 then 1% on the interest rate they are borrowing at is 10,000,000 per year.

So what they did was to sell the airport to Ann Gloag, the idea being that she would try and make it work as an airport and if she couldn't, she could sell the assets including the site for as much as she could.

I would think when this is all added to the costs of running the airport, keeping Manston could easily have cost them much more in a year than they could ever have hoped to get for it.

Well we all know the airport closed and then Ann Gloag decided to sell it, word on the street is that the asking price was in the £7m ball park.

The only two contenders were RiverOak and Discovery, very big companies with that sort of money to gamble on a project. In both cases I think neither could pay cash, or they would have done straight away.

For the seller, this comes down to the buyer's assets and provable income added any cast iron guarantors, just like if you or me want to buy an expensive item and don’t have the cash. If you have a house worth £200,000 and want to spend £50,000 on an expensive car but only have 10,000 it’s much easier than if you don’t own a house.

The next stage was the council trying to buy it by cpo. To understand this you have to appreciate that the first stage of process would be the council making an offer in the likely price ballpark.

The council has never made an offer for the airport and can’t start the cpo process without having done so, it has to be the acquiring authority making the offer and it has to be in the £7m ball park.

Obviously as Riveroak have said they have already made offers in this ballpark, all RiverOak have to do is give £7m to the council, then the council can offer it for the Airport.

If the owner says yes, then the council buys it, give the £7m to the owners who give the airport to the council, who give the airport RiverOak.

So the first of the many hurdles was for RiverOak to give £7m to the council, they never did manage this.

Another pen and watercolour view from Chocolate Cafe in Canterbury.

Doing this during half term when I get my children snacks there, adds to the fun.

On to the absence of blogging the past few days, the truth is I am writing an account of my youth and don't have much time for other writing.

Finally whoever clocked the 2m mark on the counter here, a wave from the spiral staircase of my life, to the spiral staircase of yours.  

Start of a Watercolour painting of La Trappiste from Chocolate Café in Canterbury today.

I have finally found the ideal site to paint La Trappiste in Canterbury from, if you are familiar with Chocolate Café in Canterbury, ‘nough said, otherwise I can only say it comes with my strongest recommendation.

The picture is all brush, lots of layers and fairly free.

If you are geographically disadvantaged La Trappiste is on the left in this photo and Chocolate Café is on the right. 

A really odd one here from my teenage children, I offered to give them the money to get themselves a drink and a cake in McDonalds or join me in Chocolate Café and the elected to join me. 

The atmosphere is very good for painting as because everyone is high on dopamine and therefore very happy.