Postponed weekend

Being a freelance is a difficult task in a current economic climate but it has its good points: for example you can move your weekend - you work on Sunday but have Monday off. This is exactly what we did today: we had a perfectly relaxed day , I did my Easter card working (?) away in my pyjamas while Simon reluctantly (a photographic proof included) typed his grant application. So do keep your fingers crossed - he is working on a great project now and it would be nice to get some extra funds to be able to take some part of it with a large format camera!



When I have finished my my drawings for today I went to have a look here. It is just worth mentioning that his name is pronounced [Pips] not [Pepis] as I have always thought to be correct. But the funniest bit is mentioning of the temperature on that particular day in 1666!

Turner *

The album of Turner's works we have at home famously states in the preface that Turner's work cannot be reproduced. Even the best print only serves to awaken one's curiosity about the original.

Indeed the reproduction of the painting I found on line does not do much justice to the original but it should give a good impression of what I was saying about Turner's late works. Monika and I we were having a conversation about her pictures of Venice (she goes there almost every year photographying extensively but she is complaining that she still have not managed to grasp the image of the city the way she would liked to) and I think Turner's version could provide her with some inspiration.


Well, she probably knows this image already, but just in case:

Turner

Edinburgh might not be London or Paris (in terms of fashion and grandeur of art exhibitions) but it also has its moments. One of them is definitely a new exhibition in the Scottish National Gallery of Turner's works inspired by Italy.









































Of course we went to have a look this afternoon.

It is one of the best prepared expositions I have seen recently - containing all the right doses of paintings, watercolour sketches (my favourite part of Turner's work), insights into privacy of sketchbooks and works of other artists who inspired the artist (etchings by Piranesi and paintings of Lorraine).













The main thing that strucked us was how many effects Turner used in his paintings were in fact still relevant in modern photography! And how mastermindedly he planned his career!

I am not a big fan of his early oils (especially with figures whose faces he annoyingly limits to two black dots for eyes and red bulging cheeks) where I just would love to crop the most interesting part (like a procession entering the Vatican with a spectacular view of Rome behind it from Turner's 1820 painting Raffaelle, acoompanied by La Fornarina, preparing his Pictures for the Decoration of the Loggia) but his late works form 1840s are simply breathtaking. We were analysing them jokingly "oh! here we have some polarizer and a warm filter" but his minimalistic views of Venice, consisting only of lashings of paint where a silhouette of a familiar building emerges.

Looking for some spring shoes

Dear girlfriends! I am at the lookout for some nice spring shoes. So far I have not managed to find anywhere here a shop stocking latest Camper's collection or at leats nice colourful flats (girls here go for ultra high heels, not quite my thing). So after having a lunch in Urban Angel where a girl behind the counter wore ^ these I am getting more and more inclined to get some white Converse baskets. I should not be too old for that yet...

After working all day long, Simon and I decided to sacrifice our evenings to cinema seances and yestareday we watched Angel by Francois Ozon (non!non!non!) and Au Bout du Souffle with beautiful Jean Seberg (she has inspired my haircut once) and barechested Belmondo. Pas mal.

Tonight we are seeing Hitchcock's Rear Window. The relationship between Grace Kelly and James Stewart was apparently inspired by one between Robert Capa and his girlfriend.

Dear camera

Even though the Easter break has started I am not planning any holiday (as usual). Instead I will be spending these 3 weeks working on my photographic project which recently spinned into quite an unpredicteable direction. Instead of a landscape I am having models in the studio, so the grounds I am feeling much more secure with. At least that!

Unfortunatley I will have this gorgeous (well, let's put it this way: it is better than any shoes I was eyeing recently) MPP camera with a Schneider lens available only for the Easter break so I will be posting only once, maybe twice a week during these busy days.

However you can still meet me more often on my illustration blog which I must keep up to date without any excuses (ups!). See you all very soon!

Springtime!

Finally! Finally! THE END OF TERM! I will have time to work on my college project as postgraduates are allowed to work on the premises even during the Easter break.

I just have to pick up my MPP camera from the college and off I go to work on my landscape project!

Meanwhile - Spring has arrived. Actually it has been like this (see the image) since weeks already. Beautiful sunshine, Scots in tshirts (well, it is going to be +15 for next several months anyway) my weekly walks down to Leith where I am getting my films developped have become more pleasant. There are elderly ladies listening to Classical Radio while they tent to their gardens. There are crocuses everywhere. Twitting birds.Kissing couples.

Just find me in the image - there are flowers sprouting from my head and it is exactly how I feel!

Moonlight

Sometimes the Castle looks like it needs a Rapuntzel!