...a plethora of creative nonsense...
Reading Time: 2 minutes While down in Norwich the other month, I could not of course resist the lure of Jarrolds art shop again. This is alternatively heaven, or a way to spend all the money you don’t have, if you are like me, with a mixture of high …
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s probably impossible to have escaped knowledge of Temu over the last couple of years. The site that (apparently) lets you “Shop Like a Billionaire” became the darling of the younger Gen Z and the oldest Gen Alpha, amid concerns abouy Viruses, data protection, poor …
Reading Time: 5 minutes I have been down to Norwich, and Cambridge again, for yet more sorting of my father’s affairs (i.e mess). Actually, it was quite productyive on this occasion, as I did find much more of his art work, which I will discuss in due course, and …
Reading Time: 2 minutes As I have mentioned, when making watercolours there’s always some left over in the mortar and I like to use this to prepare grounds for future work. These are some recent earths, on the poundland paper which I use for cheap expreimenting. These were inspired …
Reading Time: 2 minutes We are lucky nowadays to have a massive array of complex pigments and dyes at our disposal, both organic pigments such as Quinocridones, Pyrrols, Perylenes etc, and the increasing inoganic metal pigments still being developed – Sicopal Spinel pigments, Zirconium Vanadium pigments, the miraculous Yinmn …
Reading Time: 3 minutes Somewhere I have been meaning to get to again for some time, is Middleton Railway. This little heritage line, tucked away in the arse-end-of-the-least-salubroious-area of Leeds is actually the oldest surviving railway in the world. Built as a horse drawn waggonway in 1758 to serve …
Reading Time: 2 minutes I think we’vr had a marginally better summer this year, or at least subjectively, I have managed to experience more of it from somewhere otger than sat in the office. The other evening I took the new Mungyo colours out in the front garden in …
Reading Time: 9 minutes After picking up the Munyo “Nostalgia of Pastels” set a while ago I was interested to find a larger Mungyo set in The Range for £11.99. While I keep a large “professional standard” pallete it’s always nice to have a few more paints, and I …
Reading Time: 3 minutes Prompted by my continual playing with natural pigments in my paints, I made a batch of Avocado ink the other day. This is perhaps one of the better known vegetable dyes, creating a relatively stable and lightfast dusty pink colour. I’ve brewed up a couple …
Reading Time: 4 minutes For the first time in some years the annual seaside trip that Unison provides me was not to the usual Scarborough or Whitby, but the smaller East Yorkshire Town of Bridlington, somewhere I have not been until now. We planned not to take children this …
Reading Time: 3 minutes I do sometimes have to admit that I am a compulsive buyer of anything arty that looks interesting, even if I have no idea what I intend to do with it. But every now and again it does mean I escape my fixation with watercolours …
Reading Time: 4 minutes Inspired, in part, by The High Line in New York there has been discussions about creating similar on Holbeck Viaduct for some years now. So far this has sadly not come to anything, but on a smaller scale the Monk Bridge Viaduct development has started …