Continuing with my theme of visiting places, on Friday I visited The National Gallery with the same person I went to Tate Britain with yesterday. The National Gallery is open late on Fridays, and free to get in, it's also very easy to find as it's right next to Trafalgar Square.

Most of the galleries are on one floor, but grouped to cover a geographical area and a certain number of years, so one area covers paintings from 1500 to 1600, and then it's split in to Florence, Venice, the Netherlands etc etc.

Erasmus by Hans Holbein the Younger

I was quite pleased to see the Holbein is one of the artists on show as I've always like his work, although I have to rely on the descriptions to spot all the hidden symbolism he includes.

We didn't get round the whole thing, but what I saw was very nice so we'll be going back again in the future to finish off the rest of the galleries!

Have a nice day everyone!

Tate Britain

Today I went in to central London to visit the Tate Britain. I'm actually quite tired as it was a longer train-ride than I expected and then I walked along the Southbank as well afterwards, so this post is going to be quite short.

It was very interesting, I'm not a massive fan of art at the best of times but it was interesting to see some of the older things they had there. The Turner Gallery was nice, I hadn't seen much of his work in the past but the person I was with enjoys his art and knew a lot about the other works we were looking at, so for once I didn't wander around feeling like an idiot.

I still maintain that a lot of modern art is pretentious rubbish though :P

Have a nice evening everyone!

Botticelli

Once again I've had to go searching on Wikipedia to find inspiration for a blog post. This should have been done much earlier, but I went in to Richmond to buy two week's worth of food, so naturally that meant that everything else has been delayed this evening.

Today is the anniversary of the executions of George Boleyn, Francis Weston, Henry Norris, William Brereton and Mark Smeaton, who were all found guilty of treason by committing adultery with Anne Boleyn.

It's also the anniversary of the death of the renowned Italian artist Botticelli. One of his best known works is The Birth of Venus, which depicts the goddess Venus (aka Aphrodite) standing in a clamshell, retaining her modesty as best she can with her hands and her long hair.

Botticelli's Venus Illustration Bookmark by nextlola

And another Italian has done her own version of it! This cute little shop has bookmarks, postcards and stickers with original artwork inspired by some of the great masterpieces in art.

Have a nice evening everyone!

Happy Birthday Dad

Today is my Dad's birthday! My card and gift were left safely in my Mum's keeping when I went home a few weeks ago, so hopefully she remembered to give them to him today.

My Dad is a big QPR fan, although the current season has led to him giving up a bit because there's only so many bad results a fan can take before they want to bash their head against a wall. He is the reason why me and my brother are QPR fans too.

Out of curiousity I typed "QPR" in to Etsy's search and found diddley squat, Etsy is not really the place to go for football fandom gifts. BUT I did spot this nifty piece of artwork which I thought was quite cool.

Book Clubs "QPR" - A4 Football Print by TommySauce

This shop is simply stuffed with British football club prints, I also spotted West Ham and Crystal Palace so that's two of my work colleages covered as well.

So happy birthday to my Dad!

Have a nice day everyone!

The Rain Rain Rain

"And the rain rain rain
Came down down down"

I bet you never realised I was a Winnie the Pooh fan! It's been raining quite a lot here in London recently, if it was cold enough then it would be snow and I'd be very excited right now. Instead I'm simply looking out the window observing the puddle that seems to be getting bigger and bigger.

I quite like the rain, although for once I wish it was a little warmer. That said, once summer comes around I'll be complaining that I wish it was cooler XD

City Rain by OriginalArtShop

I like the picture above as one of the things I like about rain is the way people and buildings are reflected in wet pavements. There's some lovely artwork in this shop, including some nicer sunny-looking ones.

Have a nice day everyone!

The Zodiac

After my post about Little Brother and Dad's birthdays last week I realised that me and my siblings cover each of the elements in the western zodiac, air, earth, fire and water. I actually find this quite a fun coincidence, so today we're having a look at star signs!

Subway Art- Aquarius by PaperBleu

Doing these in date order, first of all is Youngest Little Sister! Her birthday in January puts her in Aquarius, which is an Air sign. Out of that list above I'd say she's definitely friendly and thoughful, and quite intellectual as well. She's the first out of me and my siblings to be put in the top class for maths!

I am an Aries by blushface

As you might have guessed from my post last week, my brother is an Aries and therefore a fire sign. I'm not sure about energetic, he seems to spend most of his weekends sleeping, but he's pretty enthusiastic about cars and QPR, and generally thinks he's good at everything so that's the confidence sorted XD

Virgo Cell Phone Charm by loveyourathlete

Eldest Little Sister is a September baby, one of the earth signs. They tend to get stressed easily, and they like things to be neat and organised, which is VERY much how Eldest Little Sister is, to the point of borderline OCD. She also has a way of finding small things to do for people, like clearing the table for our Mum after dinner or sharing her chocolate with me, another Virgo trait :)

Scorpio Hammered Pendant by PointyKitty

And then last but not least there's me, the Scorpio, one of the water signs. Scorpios are often given a bad reputation for being unforgiving (true) and stubborn (also true) but we're not so bad. The keepers of both promises and secrets. And we're passionate, you've all seen me rant about the football XD

So there we have it, the four signs of my siblings and me, air, fire, earth and water!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Kew Gardens

It's another Bank Holiday weekend! Sadly no Royal Wedding accompanying it so it was only 3 days off rather than 4 (I think we've been spoiled by that this year XD), but it's still nice to have a Monday off work.

So I went home (aka back to my parent's place) for a few days. Which meant that they brought me back to Kew yesterday (Sunday) and since they were here we decided to make a little trip to Kew Gardens.

And as it turns out, there's several people on Etsy who have been to the Gardens and received a bit of inspiration from them!

Kew Garden Gates by lindabutterfly

Palm House Kew by FlaxInk

Palm House at Sunset by 4artssake

Clearly they're not the only ones, we saw several photographers and at least one artist (complete with paint and multiple sketchbooks) as we were wandering around, although potential visitors need to be aware that Kew does not allow "commercial photography" without prior consent.

It's a lovely place to visit, there's more information on their website. If you're in London (namely south-west London, it's a bit of a trek from the center) then check it out!