Sugar Baby Love

I really like this French AIDS awareness advert as it gives much more than just the AIDS awareness message.

The Stone Pickers

The Stone Pickers by Sir George Clausen (1852-1944)is my favourite painting in the Laing Gallery in Newcastle. Clausen was one of the primary modern artists of landscape and of provincial life, shaped to a certain degree by the impressionist art movement.

Beagles

Well I have got two so not unexpected.

Saint Sebastian

Lots of connections with things I like here -

Rio in Brazil - Sebastian is patron saint of the city.



Literature - Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited and the mystery of Sebastian's death in Suddenly Last Summer



Film - Derek Jarman's Sebastian



Paintings - a great collection at
http://picasaweb.google.com/javier.arnott/SanSebastiN

Two of my favorites not included in this collection of photos are by Tsarouchis and the Colombian artist Manzur

Easter Island

Visited Easter Island as one stop off on a round the world trip. The stone heads are really amazing close up and the island so beautifully desolate once you got away from the main town and the tourist tat.

French and Saunders

Parque El Virray

Saturday and Sunday mornings I am usually in Parque El Virray with out dogs. Perhaps not the most wonderful park in the world - long and thin. Stretching between Calle 7 and the Autopista Norte but I really enjoy walking through it in the morning



After walk - well breakfast in Cafe Illy on the ground floor of the Hotel Charlotte overlooking the park and on Sunday packed with Cyclists and dogs.



There are a few interesting buildings around the park. I think this is one of the most elegant apartment blocks in Bogota.



This odd little house on the park with its sculptures on the terrace has made me curious about the owners.

And then finally there is Paco, el Rey, has he was described in a local paper. A stray who lives in the park and has won hundreds of friends.

Bogota Cyclovia

One of the things I like about Bogota is the Cylovia. Every Sunday and most bank holidays the main roads are closed to traffic and everyone gets on their bikes and skateboards. The whole thing is supervised by young volunteers in rather nice yellow and red uniforms.

Sunbaker - Max Dupain

This is one of my favourite photographs by Max Dupain - iconic of Australia the shape of the figure reminds me of Ayre's Rock

Gormley

I really love the photos of Andrew Gormley's installation of statues in Liverpool even though the figures seem so remote and lonely.

Bar Banal - Thessaloniki

Bar Banal in Thessalonika, owned by Iraklis Doukas, was a little piece of Greek gay history. It was the first gay bar I ever visited.



I remember how traumatic going there the first time was for me, perhaps why I remember Peter Gabriel's Shock the Monkey playing as I was let in.

Sadly long gone.

Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey

Winged Spirits - Yannis Tsarouchis

I am really fond of the paintings of Yannis Tsarouchis a famous Greek 20th Century artist - particularly the paintings of Winged Spirits or, as I like to call them, butterfly boys. The Tsarouchis Foundation has turned his house in Athens into a museum which I always try to visit when in Athens - which is very rare these days. Those visits are always a little sad as they take me back to my first visit while Tsarouchis was alive and it was a home of sorts not a musuem.

Foundation Museum site http://www.tsarouchis.gr/
Facebook page for Tsarouchis with an exhibition and links to other sites featuring his work.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yannis-Tsarouchis/24472611733

Archaeological Museum Istanbul

Two things I really like in the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul are

1. A statue of a Greek athlete wrapped in a cape.

2. The statue of Bes (also spelt as Bisu) an Egyptian deity worshipped as a protector of households and in particular mothers and children








The link below is to a website has great photos of other artifacts in the museum which has so many really beautiful things such as the Alexander Sarcophagus and some odd things like the statuettes of temple boy prostitutes.

http://www.pbase.com/dosseman/archaeological_museum_istanbul&page=all

Things to draw

Photos to draw.

Annuciation - Fra Angelico.

I first saw this early renaisance painting of the Annunciation in reproduction on a classroom wall at high school.

When learning about drawing perspective recently I looked it up as well as pictures by Giotto. Now I appreciate the clever use of perspective in this painting by Fra Angelico.

The vanishing point is the small window near the virgin Mary's head. Though this is an insignificant detail the effect draws the eye there and so to the virgin.