Pencil drawings

Well just two. Impossible to photograph them. On the black and white drawing the head did not come out and on the colour pencil one, the legs did not come out and you can hardly see them. Never mind. I am too tired to take more photos so that will have to do. I do not want to be blamed if we miss the ferry tomorrow morning. My bags are packed and I am nearly ready to go. Bye for now.

Holy Week in Spain

Hi Victoria, Robert !

Going to Madrid was an impulsive decision. Peter wanted to go and I doubted whether we could get a room, since this is the time of the year when most people in Spain take their holidays and go out, but we were extremely lucky in getting a really nice one with a balcony overlooking the Neptune fountain and just a stone throw away from the Prado Museum. When we arrived to the hotel on Good Friday, there were blue barricades on both sides of the road and the crowds there were waiting to see the procession with the Christ pinned to the cross. It was only 3 p.m. and this procession was not going to be until 7 p.m. people were prepared to stand waiting for four hours to see this, but the best part of it was when finally 7 p.m. arrived and the procession was cancelled ! There was a lady who had come all the way from Ceuta to see this. I have no idea why, because Ceuta has their own noted Christ, with a real set of human hair and all.

The next day, we went to the Prado Museum to see a Victorian exhibition by the Pre-Raphaelite English painter called: ' The Sleeping Beauty ' by Sir Edmund Coley Burne-Jones. All of these paintings live in Puerto Rico, in the Ponce Museum so I am not likely to see them in England. There was also this huge painting about the death of King Arthur in Avalon. The theme was sleep, sweet dreams which was also associated with death in Victorian times. The roses, symbolised love survivimg death which was a recurrent theme in Rossetti's poems and paintings. Also there was the painting " Flaming June " by Lord Leighton. I enter the museum for free. Someone came to me, a complete stranger and gave me a visitor's badge. The badge allowed me to see all the exhibits including the Rembrandt one, so that was a real stroke of good luck. I think it was an angel who gave it to me. Most people do not normally make this kind of gesture.

Victoria's pictures from Antarctica

Robert, These are 4 of some of the wonderful pictures from Antarctica that Victoria took during her holiday there. I think the pictures of the penguins are really cute ! and the glaciers look like ice lollies or meringues on water.

Red Roses

Unfortunately, it doesn't register too well. The reds do not come as bright as the real picture and the mauves fail to appear. Never mind, this is my latest flower painting. If the real one was as ugly as the one that appears here, I would start again. The photo is very disappointing.

View from the back of my house

I did this painting as soon as we had moved to our home. Everything was in boxes, the house was bare and I had an empty room to just look at this view undisturbed.

It was summer, the colour of the sky was powdery blue, the farmer had just cut off the grass and there was this fresh smell of cut grass in the air so I parked my easel, took out my paint tubes, pallete and brushes and started to paint, I also wished everything stayed in its boxes forever so that my mind wouldn't be cluttered with other stuff in the room.

If I had to choose a few items in my life, it would be my painting gear that is the only thing that really makes me happy. The photos I have taken of this painting are not good. So I posted two to give you a better idea how the view looked in that lovely summer's day.

The latest on the Colossus of Goya

Francisco de Goya's most dramatic and famous picture - At least it was until January this year - when an expert at the Prado Museum declared it was not painted by him. They now believe it was painted by one of his assistants, whose initials may appear in a corner of the canvass. The final decision to remove Goya's plaque attributing the painting to him would be changed , followed by a lenghty study by the Prado expert Manuela Mena, which the museum published on the 26th of January.

Manuela Mena said X-rays of the picture had allowed her to spot the top half of the faded initials " AJ " scribbled in the bottom left-hand corner, which she said may point to it being the work of one of his assistants, Asencio Julia, who is known to have been Goya's main assistant in the later part of his life.

The news has reignited the controversy that first raged when the museum made it known last year that it had begun to doubt that the Colossus could have been painted by Goya. The Prado's expert also claimed the quality of The Colossus was far below that of Goya's other masterpieces. The brushstrokes were deemed: " slow and insecure " According to the report, it revealed an insecurity in the artist which did not match the bold, direct approach normally taken by Goya himself. The painting will continue to hang in its place but the plaque attributing it to Goya, would be changed.

Mothering Day

In most countries Mother's Day is celebrated on the 10th of May, but in Britain, we celebrate it in March. So, for that reason, I wanted to have her here, so that I can see her every time I look at my picture gallery. Thank you for your kind comments about my mother Robert, and just like you, I also thought she looked like a film star too, so once... at a gathering, when I was a little girl, I casually commented : " On the days mummy was a film star " to the other people. Very embarrased, my mother said: " No, I have never been in films, where did you get that idea from ? Its easy to get this idea by looking at this picture, which I was showing to the other children. There is another photo of hers in profile, where she is smiling and she looks far prettier than on this photo.