Seeing Double

This was a very interesting and accidental angle I found to take photographs...from inside my musical jewellery box...

An unusual view of the city

Manchester, the sky and reflections. Equals a winning combination.

The City Speaks

Graffiti is something that has fascinated me since my GCSEs when I embarked on a project about "Underground Art" on the American subway...much to the dismay of my tutor, who considered it to be nothing but defasive criminal activity. She didn't deter me though and since living in an urban environment, my interest has widened to general words, symbols and images which silently appear on walls and pavements - in fact any flat surface, which was not intended to be a canvas, but none the less becomes one.

Up close and personnal

Natural textures are always appealing to me. Anything we would normally just walk past....a brick in the wall, a crack in the pavement or a piece of fallen plaster. Things which are seen to exist for their practical purposes are often overlooked for their accidental beauty.

Look closer next time.

Doors to the past?

Having been in this wonderful City of Manchester for nearly 6 years now, I have built up quite a collection of photos from round and about my strolls. My phone camera usually proves adequate to capture streets, doors, buildings, textures, views etc and I now have a body of work which documents the many sights which inspire me and feed into my paintings, illustrations and collages. Anything quiet, abandoned, forgotten and ooozing with history gets me going.

Doors are a special fascination for me, because they lead to, or used to lead to, somewhere or something else to what you see on the outside.

Venice

I was fortunate enough to visit the magical city of Venice a few weeks ago and found, as I am more and more so, that all I need for hours of uninterrupted entertainment, is white paper and a black pen. Capture the moment and embellish it later on. Unsure whether or not to touch the original line drawing, I took a good snap and tentatively added some colour. Still not convinced. Going to see if some thread will change my mind.... It's all about experimenting apparently.

New bits of Inspiration

Despite not being a huge lover of fancy bits of technology and the "smart" phones especially, I am grateful to Nokia for having such fab camera aps, so I can capture little bits of nature and accidental beauty whilst on my daily travels. Whilst on a trip to London last weekend, I emerged from the grubby tube station bracing myself for the hustle and bustle of the Capital streets that lay above....instead, as i gazed up towards the sky, I found myself beneath the most magnificent empty tree, branches bending and twirling from all angles, and the clear blue sky beaming through the gaps. Maybe London ain't so bad after all....

Image 2 - the distinctive flowers from Nexus art cafe standing tall on each and every table, I barely notice them any more. Until....they cast a beautiful shadow on the white wall behind them.

Sometimes you just need to to see things from a different angle.