The Mall, Phantom and the Evening Star

On Saturday I cycled into London (with great trepidation at locking my bike up by Trafalgar Square) to meet Katherine Tyrell and Vivien Blackburn, with her friend Glen, to see the RI Watercolours exhibition and some exhibits at the National Gallery.

The day started well with no rain and a lovely ride through Wapping and Shadwell (my favourite route, but the long way around into town) over to Tower Bridge. And I managed to get into the Mall Gallery for free (I do think they should have an artist price) to meet Katherine, Viv and Glen. The work there was interesting, I'd never been to see the Painters in Watercolour society before and it struck me as being very much like the Pastel Society - strong work overall, a wide variety of styles and approaches. I like that in a show. I do think at the Mall there is always a leaning towards traditional but it's nice to see a few of the societies at least pushing the boundaries. The show is only on through this weekend so see it if you have the chance.

The highlight of the day of course was the "Phantom" exhibition at the National Gallery. What I enjoyed about this work was that the premise seemed very down to earth, very tangible but beautiful and ethereal at the same time. Perhaps I identified with the way Alison Watt focuses in on small, seemingly insignificant, portions of old paintings - I personally have a love for the soft hazy background landscapes in romantic Dutch paintings.

After all the coffees and walking with Katherine back to Embankment Station, where I grabbed my favourite bits of take-away sushi from Wasabi (lunch for £2! Two tofu nigiri and a salmon onigiri), I then returned to the National Gallery. With the good fortune of nabbing a bench seat, I sat and looked at Turner's Evening Star painting for a while. My favourite Turners are, like those from the Tate Britain, off on tour. Another visitor was overheard saying she preferred Calais Pier next to Evening Star because it had more movement. Well, yes, it's a raging sea scene, but Evening Star has so much hidden movement in it! (To be fair, Evening Star is most definitely not one of my favourite Turners; I also prefer Calais Pier) Though it's a flat sunset beach scene (and unfinished) it's actually made up entirely of diagonals and triangular planes of colour. I sat and did a couple tiny sketches. The first is just playing with following the triangles of colour; the second is drawing just the linear aspects, both lines in the painting and lines where areas of colour meet. Both are pretty far from pictures of flat horizontals.