Showing posts with label bridges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bridges. Show all posts

14 July 2020

Drawing Tuesday - bridges

First thing in the morning I was grappling with clearing some space on my phone - trying to get rid of photos - and came across a view in the science museum which showed a bridge I'd never noticed before. Is it actually usable? Would one dare, that's a big space below! A quick sketch in my little notebook.

And then I came across some screenshots from a BBC programme on the Jodrell Bank radio telescope, all scaffolding and interconnections, yumm! It looked very confusing to draw, though, so I looked online and found a simple version of the bare bones of the telescope's structure (1957), and downloaded and printed that. Then out with the carbon paper and on with some Outright Cheating. It was hard enough, during the Cheating, to choose what to include, and not to lose important bits - I learned a lot! This is a "Bridge to the Sky" - or rather, to outer space. Not only has the telescope been finished, but it's been upgraded since and looks like a proper modern telescope now.

From Carol  This is my favourite Lego model now residing at my daughter’s house but may come back to me shortly due to little hands now being able to reach it. The challenge – remembering to make it look like Lego and not just a model. Drawn mainly from a picture (with a little tracing as the perspective was blowing my mind!).

From Janet KBrooklyn Bridge - with a bit of colour. Taken from a B&W photo.

From Judith Thames on a greyish day! Paper from an old stash of oddments. I thought it was watercolour paper but it was more like blotting paper.

From  Sue B - a watercolour sketch of Pulteney Bridge in Bath which I did from a ‘photo last May...No time this week for a new bridge!

From Janet B -  rather hurried sketch of a few Newcastle bridges. No time to add Newcastle!

From Joyce - The artist Samuel Palmer lived in Shoreham, Kent, for 8 years and lived in Water House overlooking the river Darent. He sketched a bridge he could see from the house known originally as Longebregge and which dated back to the thirteenth century.
I have made a study of his sketch and then made my own sketch from when we walked from Otford to Shoreham on Sunday. (How lucky was the choice of subject for today!)
The bridge has been repaired and remodelled since but still retains the basic design of a medieval packhorse bridge. 
Both on brown paper with gouache, pen and ink.


From Mags - After watching ' The Hidden Wilds of the Motorway' and feeling nostalgic for Rainham Marshes and the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, I played with some copies of photos I took from the train for my EDAM 'Javelin Journeys' piece.
Question is, which variation gets stuck down in my (new! ) sketchbook ??




From Ann - I started to draw a local bridge which is under threat ...it leads into the Grove Allypally.  Unfinished at the moment as we are enjoying seeing our son and grandson who are staying for a few days. I will finish in watercolour and ink. [see end of post for the outcome]

The portrait is a drawing from last week's Royal drawing school session and I think describes the feeling of worry experienced by many. Relates to a 'troubled waters' interpretation.


From Najlaa - "Rhine bridge"

From Hazel - I have drawn an imaginary bridge that may be found amongst the sweet peas. Hope you can spot the little critter that uses it.

From Sue S - done in pastel on dark red card. The Peace Bridge in Calgary by Santiago Calatrava

From Helen - Here’s my contribution to this week’s topic - an illustrated haiku.  A subject close to my heart!

From Gill - I looked on line for interesting bridges and saw so many spectacular newly built ones. However , I chose this old moon bridge as I thought it was simply lovely.

From Jo -  collage - green envelope and newsprint.

Addendum - Ann's finished Grove Bridge -

19 August 2019

Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge

We went up to Cambridge for a bit of Shakespeare, and discovered that the Fitzwilliam Museum, in fact just about every museum, was closed on a Monday - but the geology museum was open. 
What a revelation, just the sort of old-fashioned museum with handwritten labels and cupboards and drawers and vitrines and quirky things that I love.
Professor Adam Sedgwick's walking boots

The obligatory dinosaur

Rocks and fossils large(ish) ...

... and small

Dinosaur bones and ammonites...

... and starfish ....

... and sea-lilies (crinoids)

Microfossils - how do they even find them?

A quiet room with chemical explanations

Fog oak- "Part of a tree found March 1839
near the Reach in Mildenhall Fen at 7 feet from the surface
by men digging for clay. Its head pointed west by north.
Height with its branches 250 feet.
Height to the first branch 159 feet."

The all-too-familiar touristy view of The Backs and Kings College Chapel. Living in Cambridge in the 1970s, I used to cycle from the Sidgwick site, through the gate [now shut] at lunchtime to the market. (The site (departmental buildings) was named after the philosopher Henry Sidgwick, who studied at Cambridge in the 19th century.)
 Across the road is the Fellows' Garden, or is it the Master's Garden -
 It's big.
The evening wasn't particularly warm, and the actors, as night fell, weren't easy to hear. There was a lot of rushing about, if only to get on "stage". No doubt the tower of the University Library has seen stranger things -
The Mathematical Bridge of Queen's College, on the way back to the station -
 ps - what delight to happen upon a labyrinthine sculpture (Between the Lines, by Peter Randall Page), which set off my labyrinthine trousers -

07 January 2017

Walking across bridges

LONDON BRIDGES WALK (LINEAR)

Wednesday, 4 January 2017
Start time: 10:00
Moderate 12 miles / 19.3 km
Group South Bank
At a moderate to fast pace, starting at Tower Bridge on the north bank and walking westwards along the riverside crossing bridges for as long as we feel inclined. Stopping for refreshments along the way. Drop out points.



In my hurry to get to the meeting point in time, I left behind my hat, gloves - and camera. Which restricted photography, as we were walking briskly and navigating to the camera on the phone is a slower business than just whipping out my little Lumix.
Tower Bridge

Heading west and looking across  to the City
My geography of bridges across the Thames was shaky, and still is. A list is here: I don't have photos of all that we crossed, nor did we cross them all (left out Waterloo Bridge and Hungerford Bridge ... and possibly another?).
Southwark Bridge (1921); at low tide you can see pilings of old docks

Sculpture under the north end of Millennium Bridge (2000)
(no time to stop and read about it!)

Along the South Bank - the London Eye

Looking west and hoping the rainclouds are dispersing

Photoshoot on Westminster Bridge (1862)

Obelisk at the north end of Lambeth Bridge (1932)

Restaurant boat left high and dry by the tide

Battersea Power Station under redevelopment

Chelsea Bridge (1937) came under discussion as the location of a book
no-one could remember the title or author of (it wasn't Offshore)

Lunch stop at Battersea Park's Pear Tree cafe, beside the boating lake

Albert Bridge (1873)

Statue of Whistler at the north end of Battersea Bridge - he famously
painted the old bridge (Nocturne in Blue and Gold) in the early 1870s

The walk continued over Battersea Bridge (1890) but I dropped out
and headed for Imperial Wharf overground station


A Whistlerian type of river scene

A jumble of walkways to the houseboats
Along Cheyne Walk, a plethora of blue plaques, among them these -
Artist William Greaves and (prolific) writer Hilaire Belloc

Painter Philip Wilson Steer next door to sculptor John Tweed

Suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst
(her daughter-in-law was my boss in my 1980s library job)
This mirrored contraption -
gives a view of the river through the skylights -
On past Lots Road Power Station, now derelict and being redeveloped -

Much building in the Chelsea Wharf area -