Last day in London

The photo of The Husband holding Lynx is so cute I had to post it, even though of course it has nothing to do with London...

The second photo is me desperately hungry and tired, wishing the waiter would hurry up and bring the parmigiano so I could start eating! This restaurant, Carluccio's, had the best (bitter-chocolate) gelato I've ever had in my life. Mamma mia!

Today was our last full day in London. I'm very tired (I find big cities interesting but exhausting) and definitely homesick for my smaller town and my critters (I call them my "animolecules").

Went to Marlborough Art Gallery (gallery selling art, not a museum) specifically to see if they had any Euan Uglows displayed, since I've found none in any museums. The guy working there fetched what they had, two paintings ('Girl in a Green Dress' and a still life of yellow flowers), from the basement to show me. How cool. It was like a private showing. The paint was much thinner than I'd expected--really very little surface texture. Anyone know if that's typical for his work? How much do you suppose those paintings would go for? I can't imagine. Of course I didn't ask. :)

Back to Tate Britain to see what I missed the other day. First question I have for you: re John Everett Millais' 'Mariana', how in the world did he get that color??!! (the color of her gown). It's the most astounding hue. I know it's not simple ultramarine (genuine lapis lazuli), at least not the kind I bought a small tube of from Daniel Smith Supplies online out of curiosity, because the kind I got is a rather pale, thin, extremely-low-covering-power sort of thing.

Some of Turner's paintbrushes, used palettes, and small sketchbooks were on display. The brushes (I don't know what kind they were) certainly looked ragged!

Turner's largish oil 'Seascape with Storm Coming On', besides being gorgeous, as far as I can tell used actual black paint, where you wouldn't think it would work--almost dead center of a painting that didn't seem to have any other black pigment in it. But not only does it work, it's amazing. In the photo I've linked here, it looks as if it's a very dark blue. But in person, man, it is true black. The Tate commentary here says it's an unfinished work. Um...really? Then it's a damn good thing he didn't "finish" it. It's sublime.

Does anyone know what color blue(s) Turner used for his oil skies? It's somehow the most true sky blue (that is, true to real-life blue skies) I've ever seen, and I swear no paint I've ever tried looks quite like it. Granted, I don't paint landscape, but still.

Adored a small Henry Moore sculpture, 'Animal Head.' Wonderfully organic looking. Excellent from every angle. If I hadn't been so tired, I'd have liked to sketch it from a lot of different perspectives.

And that's the news from here...flying back home tomorrow.

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com