GIN AND T(omato?)

We have been very busy the last few days. Either hiding from the heat or gardening but I have found time for a few little pictures.

These very quick mini portraits of a lime, bound for my G & T are in very small pocket sketch books. One drawn with a Noodler's fountain  pen and ink the others in watercolour with a Pentel water brush, , the last with a few marks with a Pentel black brush pen.

First there were five (vine ripened!) tomatoes on my white plastic studio table top, Then we ate two and the remaining three took refuge in a terracotta plate on the same table.

A5 cartridge paper with a red acrylic ground, left over from some work i was doing last summer.  Gouache and watercolour

MORE CHANGES IN THE STREET, AS SEEN FROM THE BEDROOM

Last summer I wrote on renovations to the house opposite. It was eventually let, for a short while, to a young family, who were waiting for their own new house to be ready. In July they flew to pastures new and two huge pantechnicons arrived to take away their belongings.  I did this drawing to show what is a feature of removals here in Brussels and quite new to me - but then I am a provincial country boy! They have a sort of cross between a fireman's ladder and a lift which hoists boxes and furniture, some of it huge, up the outside of the building.

Shortly after we went back to England for a week to celebrate a big birthday for my inamorata and on returning we found the new occupants had moved in..  There are, as yet, no blinds or curtains so the whole edifice is visible. It is like a huge fishtank. So we have Christened the new resident Mr. Finn. We watch him making coffee, eating his breakfast, watching TV ( but not dressing or bathing) and, most often, sitting at the table. (are there any armchairs in the house?) all the while gazing it seems at a laptop. He is either Skyping his wife and children in Finland or, like me, is struggling to install his Windows 10 upgrade!  Mine works a treat now!

A few evenings ago the very hot weather brought on thunder storms and, for several hours, the sky darkened and, over the city, you could see the lightning flashing. Mr F leapt up, fearing rain and gusty winds and tore around the house closing all the windows but leaving all the lights on.  Here he is, a few minutes later, with the whole house lit up like a stage set, whilst he got back to calling Helsinki or where ever.

Some times he goes outside to listen to music in his white BMW

LOOK UP AT THE STARS

It has been a lean time for me lately for art and painting, Neither have I posted here for a long time.  But now, back in Brussels for a while, things are looking up, Although perhaps not for the unlucky Greeks who spent all last night in conference with their creditors just down the road!

I went for a walk two days or so ago, a slightly cooler day, down the hill to see my Shangri-La, Parc Parmentier, and was not disappointed. On the way there I walked, as usual, through a restful little garden connecting two streets and, to my delight, found this beautiful graffiti on the backrests of two benches and was spell bound. 

In fact, the benches are black and the text is white and the hedge is longer and the seats are further apart.  I had, in an empty state of mind, left my sketching things at home but I had my camera. So I took a quick snap, well two actually to fit in all  as a panorama and produced this edited vision when I returned

I was so happy when, eventually, I reached the park, which was as beautiful and tranquil as ever,  that I took lots of photos as visual notes. I prefer to draw in situ but this was different.  There are already four paintings coming together and one or two may be OK. I will show them here later maybe.

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But, on the moment, I am so grateful for the visionary who wrote those words and lifted my heart

FIVE MONTHS HAVE PASSED......

It is five months since I last sat here, with my lap top, to write a blog post. Time to take up the quill again?

I have done only a little painting since then. I quite like a few pictures I made of Parc Parmentier in October. This is a detail of one of them , in a looser style than those I showed in Art Week. The sun is getting lower, some of the trees have leaves still but some are fallen......

water colour, charcoal and pencil on paper

Christmas over, I travelled again to Belgium  on New Years Eve.  Mostly sitting around eating drinking and reading and visiting family. But mostly luxuriating in being with Lutje again after two and half months!  And sleeping a lot! Is it being almost 76 ?
Just a little drawing to get used to being  back, upstairs, in the studio.  Looking in a shaving mirror on  an easel this is what i saw

Two very rapid ink sketches on paper. Noodlers pen and Noodlers ink

A day or two later, on Facebook, I was nominated by an artist friend, Alison Jacobs, to take up the challenge of producing a black  and white photo a day for five days.  Maybe the drawings above made me take a "selfie" for the first one?

Alison's images are made with her iPad. I have only a little Nexus tablet with no camera facing outwards.  This was made and modified in the nexus,  later I  may use a camera.  I shall probably post them here as well or you can find them on my Facebook page

BACK TO ENGLAND

Back to England tomorrow for a while. As always i have had such a good time in Brussels.  Sadly Lutje is staying here for a few weeks more so i shall have tobe content to picture my muse thus

drawn a few days ago , whilst she seemed to be pretending to be a Matisse painting

The following day  I paid another visit to Parc Parmentier, as ever with my A6 sketch book, and here is a very minimalist view of the lake, now full of water and with beautiful reflections of the trees.

and from the other side of the water, with the sunlight through the trees and off the water

PACKING AND SORTING

Only two working days before I have to return to UK and I am sorting out some of the work I have done this summer,, so that I can make a big parcel and post it back ready for SAW and open studios . It seems really good value via Belgian post. But it does not work the other way and Royal mail!!

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I have just had the normal trauma with brown packing tape. You know how you can't find the end and, when you think you have, it tears and comes off in little icky strips and is just a nuisance?  I realised, just now, that it dates from my last packing session here and that was two summers ago. It is time for a new roll.  So until this afternoon the parcel is sitting looking like this. (two acrylic abstracts and three oil still life)

 I have done a lot of drawings and paintings of fruit and veg which will go in my suitcase. Here are a few

 These, above and below, are in oil on panels 20 x 20 cm 

these are watercolour and pencil, watercolour, and mixed media

I have also done many drawings and the odd painting (very odd!) of myself. I have never before  been into self portraits and it is worrying. I look a bit scary? Is the world ready for this. maybe i shall be braver tomorrow!

I am really looking forward to Art week, so much to do yet.
 Bridgwater potter Lesley Cooper is sharing with me which will be great.  Come and see us!

RENOVATIE

Work  continues over the road. But still we do not know what the new main windows will be like. Another van arrived on Friday and there was much banging and scraping. When it finally left, and the view was clear again, we could see a new door for the garage.  I think we are the only house in the street without a basement garage. Another big difference with England is that there is much excavation involved in house building here and a cave is almost obligatory.  Many of the houses have their principal rooms about half a storey above street level, rather like a London Georgian town house. We however live at ground level

The neighbours cat feels braver with less noise, the workmen are upstairs and, through the windows, we can see tiles going onto the bathroom wall.  After a little investigatory stroll the cat settles down on his doormat - he is in control again.

The cat, like his family,  is an ardent Belgian and, ready for the World Cup which was in full flow when we first arrived here, he hung the national flag from the big projecting bay window of this Art Deco style house and filled the window ledge with abundantly flowering geraniums in the colour of The Red Devils

This sketch is from pavement level. You can see that the cat will have trouble parking his Jaguar tonight, so big is the flag!

once again, fountain pen and water colour on cartridge paper