Two pen and watercolour sketches in Canterbury of The Beaney and St Mary Magdalene.

Here is the pen and watercolour sketch of The Beaney House Of Art & Knowledge from The County Hotel, well actually I think it’s now called ABode

and here is the sketch of St Mary Magdalene from Elsie Mo’s, well actually only the tower of St Mary Magdalene which was built in 1503 the rest of the church was pulled down in 1871 ‘cause it wos a derry.

As you can see a tricky view from Elsie Mo's due to the acute angle and the windows, I think about two hours sketching on this one.

the smallest meal I could find there, Cowgirl Burger £8.95 + coffee £2.20 very good, but too much food for a weekday lunch (I am trying to get thinner after Christmas) my wife had toast and jam £1 and a $5 shake which was £5.

Here is the view of The Beaney from, The County, which I think has even been The Michael Cain and named after one of the celebrity cooks, my cup of coffee (very good) there was over £3, as the parking was running out I only got about an hour sketching, so will endeavour to return and finish it off.

We also bought quite a lot of books for my bookshop in Ramsgate, so a fairly busy day off.

Anyway here is a question for blog readers, if you find a restaurant or café with a view that will stand a sketch or two in this area (East Kent) can you please let me know? 

The Lady Door in the children’s section in the bookshop.

One of my problems as a bookshop assistant is working out how to decorate the newly expanded children’s book section. So this is the start when I was in Canterbury last Thursday I visited The Beaney art gallery and thought a print of the painting The “Little Girl at the Door” by Harriet Halhed would look right on the door in the corner.

Something like; a painting of a door to make a door more like a picture, but not quite.

Anyway it took a photo of it with my mobile phone and have just printed it out and stuck it on the door.

Fortunately I have a fairly big printer and some blue-tack.

When I was a child I was often fairly disappointed with pictures, particularly after having read “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” I would look at them in the hope there would be at least some hint of another world that I could step into.

I am working on and off, on a painting where there is a boat heading for. What? Well I suppose if I could say what the I wouldn’t be painting the picture. 

Music here is progressing and my younger children can now get through the whole of Clementine on both the piano and the guitar sing it and playing it all at the same time.

We have had a few problems with the coloured stickers on guitars, but these seem to ironed out now.

Sorry the coloured notes don't show up too well here this may be better 

The large cheap sketchpad that will take watercolour and political execution in Canterbury

This Christmas I got a voucher for Chromos the art shop in Canterbury and as we were going there today I decided to try yet another large cheap sketchpad, this time the A3 version of this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SNOWDON-CARTRIDGE-FAT-PADS-62lb-130gm-DRAWING-PAPER-90-Sheets-/291052279199?pt=UK_Crafts_DrawingSupplies_EH&var=&hash=item43c411559f

A3 – know this sounds silly – is the largest size that will go in my pocket, when I go sketching I wear a fly fishing gilet, this one in fact http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/STORMKLOTH-MULTIPOCKET-SUMMER-MESH-FISHING-HUNTING-VEST-/280645029958?pt=UK_Men_s_Activewear&var=&hash=item4157bf5046 so the A3 sketchbook goes in the back pocket, which is massive.

Painting watercolour onto paper once the paper is bigger than about A5 you either have to stretch the paper or use very expensive, very thick paper, there is however a sneaky alternative which is to use thin soft paper that is so stretchy that it doesn’t crinkle up much when you wet it and the pad I bought today seems to fit the bill.

The rather bad watercolour A3 sketch of a Ramsgate Fishing Smack is my first attempt using this paper, the sea and the sky being put on with very wet washes painting wet in wet and then the boat was painted on top, using paint so thick that the horizon doesn’t show through.

The pictures below are of the art exhibition of pictures of political execution at The Beaney http://www.canterbury.co.uk/Beaney/Manet.aspx not many as most of the exhibition you are not allowed to photograph, very thought provoking.

After that I went to sung evensong in the cathedral which takes one through a time warp that is beyond any description I could come up with.  

A Ramble about art

Just before I found out, well I guess most people found out, about the vandalism to the paintings on The Great Wall of Ramsgate I spent most of my lunch hour in York Street Gallery in Ramsgate.

Here is the link to their website http://www.yorkstreetgallery.co.uk/ the artists exhibiting there change often and the quality is good and varied, well worth a visiting often.

There is usually painting in progress too

After two rather disheartening visits to The Turner Contemporary recently, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/carl-andre-and-rosa-barba-at-turner_10.html and http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/carl-andre-and-rosa-barba-at-turner.html I found I had pretty much stopped painting and drawing.

So today I went over to Canterbury and visited The Beaney here is their website http://www.canterbury.co.uk/beaney/

I took a few pictures with my mobile phone below They will expand if you click on them) and may add a bit more text to this post later.