Sunday, August 15, 2010

go car go




Trina and Leandro joined Denise and I in Barcelona for a few days and after seeing other people zooming about the city in these funny little yellow cars, Leandro got it into his head that we ought to do it. We had a hilarious time, what with our unwillingness to follow the instructions of the GPS system that was telling us where to go and its tendency to tell us after we passed a street that we were supposed to have turned up that one it was amazing that we found our way around as well as we did.

Leandro's rather more complete account of events below:




We had seen the bright yellow "go cars", with their speed racer black stripe, zooming up the hill and through Barcelona the night before and we all were excited about the idea of having our turn at stylishly taking in the view. Matt (an IT genius) had googled and youtubed the cars finding the site, booking and researching what it would be like.
I was crapping myself about driving one (we had a go car per couple) I had never driven on the right side of the road before and European traffic has always given me the heebies. But once inside the go car and on our way it was great fun. Matt looked extra sexy in his open black motorbike helmet, somehow pulling off a "Chips" look. I looked more like the escaped special needs version of the biker from Village People.
The three wheel mopeds flew across the streets, naughtily we hit speeds of up to 60 miles an hour, albeit down hill. (Matt and Denise insisted theirs was slower, sure guys, good excuse).
We got terribly lost and then stuck in a traffic jam on La Ramblas while the GPS lady started to sound more like a repeating rapstar than a navigation system, that is if she was talking at all. But the fun factor was through the roof and Matt now has some great photos and video footage of us buzzing our way round the immigrant quarter and up the mountain, past Colombus and winding through many small side streets, beeping our horns cheerily as peoples faces brightened to see these crazy little yellow speed cars.
I would recommend it to anyone going to Barcelona or the other cities where it is available, it's not cheap but it was worth every penny, it's still making me smile inanely just remembering the experience. Though I would say it would be great if the GPS was more interactive and you had more choice of setting an itinerary and destinations. Plus I think the lady in the small GPS box in car 36 might need a reboot. Cheers guys, brilliant fun and a great laugh!

Monday, August 02, 2010

Barcelona

Been doing lot's of relaxing and a little painting in Barcelona. Days are full of trips to the fresh food market, siestas and dodging all the people who fill the streets. Nights seem to start late and finish just before the sun comes up with drumming not far from our window. Very good to be back here.
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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

standing up

 
3 paintings I did this evening. nice way to start the mini-weekend.
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Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Blinding Light

 
feeling a tiny bit like a character from TRON i visited Anthony Gormley's Breathing Room III today and managed to get this photo before i got told off

Saturday, June 05, 2010

colour

Out on the patio today I started using a palette knife just playing around with the colours left on the palette from last weekend then decided to try another self portrait using the knife. Mouth went a bit strange, but apart from that I'm pleased with it.

Monday, May 31, 2010

self-portraits


Did a couple of self-portraits - well one and a half, experimenting with colour and tone trying to create 3D effect using colour intensity. Ran out of time to finish the second one but felt I was getting somewhere. (click image to see bigger)

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Not There

did this one last night but not very happy with it. wanted something quieter and less like a schoolboy's lame sci-fi fantasy.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

minotaur video

after a lot of struggling with windows movie maker i've got a one and a half minute video of the painting and drawings with music from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

tate-modern-no-soul-for-sale

visited the tate modern yesterday on the occasion of their 10th anniversary: no soul for sale: 60 odd independent art collectives given space in the turbine hall. bits i liked best:
  • skatepark on the southbank on the way there; 
  • girl knitting herself into a grey sleeping bag; 
  • guys who set up a little pub in the back of the hall (except that they were the only ones allowed to drink); 
  • guy making eery wailing noises on some kind of repeating recording on the stage as we left; 
  • all the info about the art collectives and what they are doing; 
  • aase's red hat; 
  • girl in an orange kimono at borough market.
click pic to see the gallery

Friday, May 14, 2010

friday

 
 

ink drawings i did this morning
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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

before dinner

been feeling a bit constrained in my paintings, afraid the further i get that i'm going to spoil them. also precious about the work that goes into the initial drawing, i find it quite tiring trying to get the proportions right. so last night i did a quick charcoal drawing consciously trying to emphasise the strength of line over getting the figure right. then i added some red and white acrylic paint. the charcoal comes off on the brush as i try to paint over it and it has some water-repellent qualities. i don't have any black acrylic paint so i then used drawing ink to fill in the shadows.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

work in progress


fascinated with the minotaur at the moment - this is a one and a half minute time-lapse video of a painting i did last night

Saturday, May 08, 2010

lounge


sitting in the lounge which looks something like this at the moment putting together pics from our walk last sunday evening and loving this artwork i found by Baruk Arikan
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Thursday, May 06, 2010

on the way to work

i gave myself a mission to collect enough pictures for another mosaic on the way to work. the challenge of taking pictures amongst busy commuters and colleagues was surprising. felt wierd pointing my camera at things, asked the woman with the red glasses if i could take her picture which was daunting but she was nice even though she was late for work.
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Wednesday, May 05, 2010

mosaic

most colourful pictures I could find in thirty minutes before bed. had this idea going around in my head of putting all my pics up on the wall in order of predominant colour.

click and click again for big
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wednesday afternoon


the day has whizzed by with some additional accomplishments:
0.1 hung out washing
1. brekky at haberdashery
2. played with reclining pic of denise to see if darkening background would make a difference
3. learned to do an animated gif in photoshop
4. had a brief rest
5. changed blog to remove old flickr feed
6. tried to put twitpic feed instead but failed
7. found the rss feed from twitpic includes thumbnails
(must be able to display them then, so far can't)
8. briefly investigate yahoo! pipes as an option
(could play with that all day)
.. later ..
9. got a yahoo pipe feed of my twitpics working

wednesday 5.5.10


Achievements this morning:
0. put washing on
0.1 did breakfast dishes
0.2 did stretches
1. took photos of two pictures i did recently of Paul (pastel, paint)
2. took a better photo of my turquoise-orange painting that shows up the colours better
3. learned how to do torn paper effect in photoshop from here
.. and it's still only 9.19
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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Pussycat in the dark

Trying out the "blog this" feature in Picassa to post a photo that I took of Denise before I left the flat in Kensal Rise. Cat meowled and followed us nearly a kilometre until we were just about home.
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