London Part 3

It appears I never set a publish date for the last part of my vacation update, how silly. So here it is:

My last two days were filled primarily gathering a few suvenieers and trying to keep the imminent and enormous tiredness I was going to be feeling after days of walking and excitement. After having seen so many monuments and pieces of Art and history, it was sad to feel my time wrapping up in Europe, I had felt a great resonance with the area and the fact that so much information was at my fingertips, as opposed to finding it through the web.

My favorite stop was definitely the National Gallery, have I mentioned this? I saw images by John Singer Sargent and Rubens. It was the only gallery I spent nearly the entire day in, the others were about two museums or monuments per day. I was not allowed to take pictures in the gallery, so here are some photos from the web of the art pieces.

 

They were all lovely... I hope to save up for some artist books of Rubens and Sargent, of course they will not have the same aura as the originals, but hey, 3000 miles from the National Gallery it will due! I also got to see Degas ballerinas and lady in the bathtub. In that room I met a lovely old man named Peter Bell who was recreating Degas Ballerinas with four colours of pencil and gave me some great tips about art and books to check out. He also strongly recommended the Camberwell Master program to attend once I was graduated after I showed him my sketchbook. He also could tell that I think too much when I am drawing, its funny how artists can get to know one another through only their lines or paint application. I also saw Trafalgar square and the Olympics countdown sign, thing..? Got out right in time before the enormous influx of people came to the city for the Olympics, go Team America! :)

After the national gallery I only had a few more stops, and finally got caught in the rain for real in London. I had expected my entire trip to be rainy, but only the last day was dreary and that was in patches. That day I got to see the Tower Bridge up close, as well as the Tower of London, I did not go in due to price and a very long wait, but next time I get to London there will be a visit to the Tower of London and to see a play, as well as more live music, hopefully.

The Tower of London was pretty neat, I have a small thing for castles, and its interesting to think about how this once dominated the London skyline, but today seems so small compared to the Shard building located just across the Thames.

After all of the novels I have read over the years, the idealized London in my mind as opposed to that I experienced was refreshing and wonderful. British art, culture and humour have been a large part of my earlier years than I anticipated, from watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail almost every weekend, to the British Authors who not only taught me how to read, but how to LOVE to read, to its historical importance in the Art world... I feel that as an Artist it is necessary to visit sites like this, almost like and Artists Pilgrimage or mecca (no pun intended mecca/MECA). The stark reality of it all is that up here in Portland, we are segregated from a wealth of knowledge that young artists really need to have around in order to grow, so I feel a trip, my first trip actually, to New York City coming before the year is out.

Thank you for reading my rambles about this adventure!  Hopefully I will remember to save the auto publish date for entries to come.