London wall - our visit to the oldest part of London

Mike and I visited the City of London last Saturday. It is the oldest part of London. Until the medieval time, this small part was London. People also call it Square Mile, due to the size. The Romans built a defence wall around it. 

First we decided to see Barbican centre. It is Brutalist architecture. All surrounding apartments are also made in concrete. The problem of concrete is that it is very difficult to clean it. Grime grows on grime.  When I tweeted these photos, a New Yoker commented 'Pretty!'. I had to tell him that they are the prettiest of the whole building! Careful composition and angles made them look pretty! :D

Then we walked toward Museum of London. On the way, we found this charming building. A lady on Twitter told me it is Ironmongers' guild hall. And another lady told me the lizard like animals are salamanders! Then I remember that salamander are related with fire. 

Ironmongers' guildhall

Salamanders

The museum had more to see than we thought. We saw bones of woolly rhinos, lions and hippos. We only got half way around to the Middle ages. We will come back for the rest. 

Despite numerous visits to London, neither we had seen London wall before. 

London wall remains. The first one in this site was built by the Romans.

There is High walk along where the city wall used to be.  After the museum, we saw a film crew. Cameraman is lying down on the ground. I thought he looks funny, so I was going to take a photo. Then look! 

  

The lightman was charming! He smiled and showed V sign. If you happen to read this blog, here is the moment you overshined the model with your charm!

Then we found this tower. Magic of London. Old and new things are side by side. Even so, we were curious why it is there in the middle of the road. We found out at home; it was Christopher Wren's church tower. The rest was damaged by the blitz during WWII. I loved it. It has a kind of Narnia lamp post feel to it!  

After we came down from the high walk , we were heading to the Guildhall. Then we saw this. Romans? 

It turned out that the square in front of Guildhall was having gladiator show! We we unable to enter the building. 

The dirty looking church on the left is another Wren. 

As we lost the destination, we wandered around the area. There were lots of nice looking bars, but they are all closed. Then we walked to the back of the Bank of England.  

We walked to see the front. They were cleaning the stones.

Next to it was Royal Exchange. There was apparently wedding reception. They were taking a wedding photo.  

We peeked Threadneedle and Lombard streets where our brokers and pension fund managers work. I have been always curious mainly because of the name!  

We had a good day! Next time we will walk along the Roman city wall with a map!

And if you wonder, of course, we came back with Le Pain Quotidien pastries and Godiva's truffles! (And we ate two pastries each on that day, too!) 

Almond croissant for me, and praline Danish for Mike

They are gone!

Matisse, rain, tube closure and gourmet therapy

Hello. I hope you had a good weekend. As I mentioned in a previous post, Mike and I visited Matisse the cut-outs exhibition at Tate on Saturday. It was raining again! So far anytime we visited the Tate, it has rained. Fate or bad luck?

The Thames  in rain

There were lots of works from private collections. I have seen quite few Matisse in my life, but there were huge works I have never seen. Marvelous! When I saw his Dance, I wanted to dance in front of them. But I thought other visitors wouldn't enjoy my impromptu performance, so I stayed still. His large works embraced me, and suddenly I didn't see any other visitors. What an experience! Matisse always lifts my spirit and all happiness comes out from inside. Nothing else in art does this to me.

After the exhibition, I wanted to buy some of my favourite works on cards. Alas, they looked so different from original. After a bit of thought, I decided to buy Tate original coloured cards for cut outs, apparently intended for children! I will make my own ones.

When the sun appeared between rains, St Pauls looked lovely!

 

St Pauls

After that, we went to Cecilia Coleman Gallery at St John's Wood to drop off a couple of my works. Unfortunately we were unaware of the closure of Jubilee line. We ended up changing tube and bus in rain. It took us 1 hour instead of 20 minutes. When we got there, we had to go to Richourx, a lovely Italian restaurant, for some cakes to recover from all the hassle!

This time I only took a few works, but soon they will have more my works including popular Angels and a mask. I will also start making some rabbits for them, too. Watch the space.

Available from Cecilia Colman Gallery

Available from Cecilia Colman Gallery

On the way back was the same problem. There was no tube. We walked to a station for over ground train. On the way there, Mike spotted something moving. 'There is a dog!' I looked where he was looking. Before I said anything, he said ' It's a goat!' Would you believe it, there was a goat in the middle of London! I looked around the building. It appeared to be a school. I imagined that this goat happily munching grass over the weekend.  

A goat in the middle of London! 

 Because of the problem with the tube, we couldn't go to the Foundling Museum to see Greyson Perry's work, as it was close to closing time. Instead we went to the British library to look around, and went to St Pancras early for shopping. You already guessed that we had organic almond croissants from Le Pain Quotidient on the way, and, of course, we bought more for Sunday breakfast. But this time we went on further. We got Fortnum and Masons's Alcoholic jam, Kir Royale, and 50% off Turkish delight, Peyton and Byrne's fig rolls and Godiva's alcoholic truffles: whisky, cognac, champagne and rum and more!  A bit of gourmet therapy for us, after the stress from tube closure. Godiva is our current most favourite chocolatier.

Lovely Turkish delight. I have to ask Mike to bake scones to try the jam. : ) 

Heavenly!

 Mike and I will be easily caught by a witch in the woods with her chocolate house!

Another bisque-firing and the British Museum

Hello everyone. I have just started the kiln for bisque-firing.

The lower shelf.

Mike made a pair of little owls as tests. Do you remember we bought a bead rack? They are the first ones to hang from it!

The top shelf

I wanted to make another piece, but after a few hours' trial, nothing came out of the clay. So I gave up, and made an anteater for fun. The anteater we saw in the Zoo last weekend inspired me. He had gentle eyes and cute ears, so does mine!

My first anteater!

******

We went to the British Museum for my research on Saturday.  I needed to look at the Lewis chessmen again. They are in a new bright display. I could see them in detail.

The Lewis chessmen

We had stayed there until we became hungry. There are always so many interesting things to look at. These are Roman brooches. One is a rabbit. The orange one is a sandal brooch! Why? I thought it was a pickled cucumber! :D

Roman brooches. Rabbit and Sandal! 

Then we went to Soho to have dim sum. We found a restaurant recommended by the Time Out as well as Japanese expatriots. Yes, it was delicious!

Then I came across the Chinese stationary shop I had wanted to visit for years, by chance.  I did some shopping!

After that, we went to Mayfair. After some shopping, we came back. What fun we had! It was also my monthly day-off. I usually have a half-day off each weekend. Once I take a day-off, it would take a few days for me to get back to the rhythm. so when I have got a project or two, I prefer to keep working.

I hope you had a good weekend, too!

Rainy Valentine day in London

Hello everyone. Mike woke me up with a box of Champagne truffles on Valentine day. He said there was not card this year because all cards weren't good. I believed him. We were going to visit Tate modern to see Paul Klee exhibition. I have seen some of his paintings here and there in Europe as well as New York in my twenties, but have never seen them in solo exhibitions. When I saw several of his paintings from this exhibition on Twitter, I felt this was a 'must see'.

A gentleman plays a piano whilst waiting for his train at St Pancras.

As rain all day and storm in evening were forecast, we drove to the station. Train came on time, and we arrived at London on time. Tate modern is not near from any tube stations; that's why I seldom visit there unless there are good exhibitions. As we didn't want to walk for long in the rain, we took a bus. When England is grey, it is really grey. There is nothing pretty! Still I took several photos from the bus window, as it was a route I had never taken.

Art deco style

Beautiful bridge

London has mixtures of old and new

When we got off the bus at the south bank of the Thames, we walked to Blackfriars station. Invicta is the motto of the county of Kent in Latin. Here was an old railway line to Dover that opened in 1864.

At the bank of the Thames.

In the rain and cold, we walked to the Tate Modern. They were setting up a Topshop show inside. It is a disused power station, and interior looks just like that.

Topshop is coming. 

From a balcony at cafe inside, London was grey and wet. St Pauls cathedral is opposite and the Millennium bridge below. 

A view from Tate modern.

The ceiling is industrial. So are the signs.

At cafe. 

As the exhibition has been on for weeks now, we didn't book tickets. We were able to see it immediately after buying tickets. It was worth the visit and every penny. I underestimated the exhibition, but there are loads of paintings in 17 rooms. I enjoyed it so much that I am going to buy a book on his work. 

I was colour coordinated with the colour theme of the exhibition. 

Whereas Mike was in the usual shades of grey!

After seeing other exhibitions on different floors, we headed for the Cecilia Coleman gallery to collect my unsold work from their animal exhibition. Luckily there were only two left. All whippets and little rabbits were sold out.

New part of London

As the storm was approaching, we headed for home. In the train, I doodled Klee influenced fish. I showed them to Mike, who laughed at them. I think the octopus is a cracker! :D

Yes, this is the bag of  Le Pain Quotidien. We, of course, bought organic almond croissants and organic Danish pastries!   

As soon as we were back we watched Men's figure skating, and witnessed Japanese 19 year-old Hanyu win the gold medal. What a lovely day we had!

The box of Valentine chocs is now empty. : )

Masterpieces of Chinese paintings and Vienna portraits exhibitions in London

V&A in sunshine

Hello everyone. Friday Mike and I went to London to see two exhibitions: Masterpieces of Chinese paintings 700-1900 at the V&A, and Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900 at the National Gallery. 

V&A - Christmas tree

We enjoyed both. As I do Japanese ink painting as a hobby, seeing Chinese masterpieces was not only pleasure but also very inspiring. I loved nine dragons and detailed scrolls. But lighting was quite dim to protect paintings. So it was a challenge to see the fine details. A lady was using a magnifying glass hung from her neck. I was impressed how prepared she was! One very long scroll called Prosperous Suzhou had such small details that I could almost read like a story book. It took a painter three years to complete it for an emperor.    

V&A entrance

After we came home, Mike found a website of Chicago university. Here you could see better details of some of the scrolls exhibited in V&A. http://scrolls.uchicago.edu/

Eros in a bubble at Piccadilly circus
We got off a tube here to walk to the National gallery

Then we went to the National Gallery. Tickets were booked for 3:30 viewing. They had Egon Schiele,Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and other Viennese artists. Schiele and Klimt have been my favourite artists for a while. But it was joy to discover Oskar Kokoschka. I liked his experimental portraits.  Among Several Klimt, some of which are unfinished, I like Ria Munk On Her Deathbed. She looked almost smiling despite she had committed suicide. Most sitters in later period had tragic ends. Among Schiele, I liked the family portraits including an unborn baby; his wife had died during pregnancy. Unlike other types of painting, portraits carry sitters' lives including the life after the paintings were done. They tell you stories about the sitters and their family.

Cockerel, crane, Nelson and London eye at Trafalgar Square where the National Gallery is.

On the way back at St Pancras, I bought some tea at newly opened Fortnum and Mason. Disappointingly they didn't have my favourite, Keemun. The shop keeper said they ran out of shopping bags!  They must be doing very well.

No Keemun tea -  I want it loose. 

In the meantime, Mike bought our favourite almond croissants at Le pain Quotidien.This time we ate two each. Mike 2, Midori 2

Midori's  grocery

After a supper I painted masks and loaded the kiln. I felt really tired after this. It was a bit too much after a day in London!

Owls and rabbits on a lower shelf - to be bisque fired

Masks, whippets and birds on a top shelf - to be bisque fired