#Painters North London

[jrslinteriors]

Salient Features of the Best Painters in North London

When it comes to renovating the appealing appeal of your home or workplace, there is no denying the power of a fresh coat of paint. However, achieving professional-quality results requires the expertise and skills of top professional painters. These skilled individuals possess a wide range of robust competencies that set them apart from amateur painters. Here, let’s closely examine some of the unique strengths and capabilities that make top professional painters in North London a valuable asset for any painting project.

Here are some of their professional capabilities you must consider at the very beginning:

Skilful Surface Preparation:

Surface preparation or groundwork is crucial to achieving a flawless and hard-wearing paint job; specialized painters in North London excel in this facet. They have the expertise to identify and rectify any surface inadequacies, such as cracks, depressions, or rough surfaces. From thorough cleaning to sanding, filling gaps, and applying primers, professional painters leave no stone unturned to create a smooth and pristine canvas for their artwork.

Extensive Knowledge of Paints:

One of the key strengths of top professional painters lies in their comprehensive understanding of paints and other painting materials they use. They have in-depth knowledge about diverse types of paints, their configurations, and their appropriateness for specific surfaces or surroundings. This knowledge and proficiency enable them to endorse the best paint products that will ensure long-lasting and visually stunning results.

Colour Consultation and Design Expertise:

Choosing asuitable colour scheme for your space can be a daunting task. Professional painters often offer colour consultation services, drawing upon their experience and understanding of colour theory. They can guide you in selecting hues, shades, and combinations that complement your space's architecture, lighting, and ambiance. With their design expertise, they can help you achieve the desired mood and atmosphere through colour.

Attention to Safety and Compliance:

Painting projects involve handling potentially hazardous materials and working at heights or in confined spaces. Top professional painters prioritize safety and adhere to all necessary regulations and safety protocols. They are equipped with the right tools, protective gear, and knowledge to minimize risks and ensure a safe working environment for themselves and their clients.

Knowledge of the Latest Techniques and Trends:

The world of painting is constantly evolving, with new techniques and trends emerging regularly. Top professional painters stay abreast of these developments and continuously update their skills and knowledge. Whether it's faux finishes, textured walls, or intricate patterns, they can incorporate the latest trends into your project, ensuring a contemporary and stylish outcome.

Precise and Efficient Paint Application:

The ability to apply paint with precision and efficiency is another strong capability of top professional painters. They possess the skills to achieve uniform coverage, crisp lines, and smooth finishes, regardless of the painting technique or surface type. Their steady hand and attention to detail ensure a flawless application, leaving no room for visible brushstrokes, drips, or uneven patches.

Time Management and Organization:

Professional painters understand the importance of completing projects within specified timelines while maintaining quality standards. They possess excellent time management and organizational skills, ensuring that the painting project progresses smoothly and efficiently. They create detailed work schedules, coordinate with other professionals if necessary, and minimize disruptions to your daily routine.

Summing up…!

The robust capabilities of top professional painters make them invaluable assets for any painting project. If you are trying to find, reach, and hire the best painters in North London, then follow this post, as it has all the necessary information about the vital characteristics that top painters usually have. Suppose you are in some kind of hurry to streamline your search faster. In that case, you can stop searching with your reach to JRLS Interiors, a well-known company in London that provides impeccable painting services to its bona fide clients everywhere in London and the rest of the United Kingdom!

[rowlondonconstruction]

Make your home unforgettable with expert painters and decorators in North London. Our team offers exceptional craftsmanship, transforming your space with stunning designs and flawless finishes. Whether it's a fresh coat of paint or a complete makeover, trust us to create a memorable and inviting atmosphere.

[eddy25960]

Three Archers (early 1900’s). Erich Wolfsfeld (1884-1956), British. etching.

He was an etcher, painter and teacher, born in Krojanke, Germany. He was brought up in Berlin, where he attended the Academy, 1902–13, although had periods away, studying at Académie Julian, Paris, under Jules Lefèbvre, and he learned etching in the studio of Hans Meyer.

Between the wars Wolfsfeld established a notable reputation, and he built up a substantial output partly based on extensive travels in Europe and North Africa. He died in London in 1956 (aged 71).

(Don Bryson publication)

[reasonsforhope]

Catherine Borowski has always had an active imagination. As a child, she dreamed that the car park on her north London council estate would be transformed into a garden. The reality was quite different. “No one had a car, so it was empty, grey and depressing,” she says. Now a sculptor and event producer, Borowski has made it her mission to fill unloved urban spaces with flowers – albeit virtual ones. 

She and her partner Lee Baker are the founders of Graphic Rewilding, a project to install huge nature-inspired artworks into the urban landscape. “Where real rewilding isn’t possible, our goal is to inject the colour and diversity of nature into rundown spaces, urging people to notice – and find joy in – the world around them,” says Baker.   

The pair believe that flowers possess serious powers, even when they’re not real. “We know that spending time in nature is good for us, but studies show that even pictures of plants have a positive effect on the mind,” says Baker. He cites research published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, which found that imagery of plants in hospital waiting rooms can help reduce feelings of stress in patients. 

Baker, a painter and music producer, has long understood the benefits of biophilic design. Having suffered a breakdown 10 years ago, he found that drawing flowers was the only way to soothe his buzzy brain. “I would set out to draw dystopian landscapes, representative of my state of mind, but I’d always end up drawing flowers, which uplifted me,” he says.

It was around this time that Baker met Borowski, joining her production company as creative director. The pair have collaborated ever since, launching Graphic Rewilding in 2021. Since then, they’ve installed floral murals at locations including Earl’s Court station, Lewes Castle and Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepherd’s Bush – all hand drawn by Baker. “We love galleries, but we focus on public art,” he says. “This way, our work is out there for everyone to enjoy.”

This year the pair have grand plans to create a series of stained glass pavilions (think greenhouses with colourful floral-themed panels), which they hope might find homes at Kew Gardens and the Eden Project. “The way light shines through the glass is magical,” says Borowski.  

Even so, they concede that art is no match for Mother Nature. “Some people have suggested that our project detracts from real rewilding efforts. But both can co-exist,” says Borowski. “Of course we want more green spaces.” adds Baker. “But we aren’t gardeners. We’re artists. In the absence of nature, we want to create inspiring spaces through art.”

Overall, the response has been hugely positive. “The joy that these artworks bring is palpable,” says Baker, highlighting an early project in Crawley, West Sussex. “Many people in the town were employed by Gatwick airport and Covid had taken its toll,” he recalls. In a bid to spread some joy, the duo painted brick walls, billboards, benches and even bins with their signature floral flair. “Peoples’ reactions were heartwarming. There were so many smiling faces,” he says.

Elsewhere, in Earl’s Court, the pair transformed “a ratty piece of tarmac” into a modern-day pleasure garden, which is now often filled with children dancing and doing cartwheels on the way home from school. “Putting art into a place that previously felt unloved feels like cultivating joy where there was none,” reflects Borowski. “If something like this had been installed on my estate when I was a kid, it would have been a dream come true.”

-via Positive.News, November 6, 2023

[unhinged-summer-fun]

the foolish heart's guide to not repeeating history - chapter 5

Pairing: Dream of the Endless "Morpheus" x F!Reader

series masterlist

chapter 5: folly of man

Things are… different after that.

You keep a place on Earth, the standard ‘flat in London’ that the Endless enjoy—even Despair seems to have one. You decorate it in the same eclectic style Death had done in her own space, but with crystals that catch the light and all manner of reflective surfaces to illuminate the otherwise dim interior. Hob likes to stop in to gossip and meet another bogglingly old bastard like himself.

Despite the tentative trust in the joys you have, Death’s question from three thousand years ago follows you with every footprint you leave behind.

“What will you do when this is done and he is… saved?”

You still have no idea.

Even the rules are different here now. The Destruction from your old universe had mentioned it a few times, but you didn’t truly understand what he meant until you started playing by them. You knew some fundamental things: The Endless cannot dream. The Fates cannot dream. You had always been told that you could not dream.

Until the night you do.

The Dreaming is unlike how you’d ever seen it before.

You remember the palace as it had been, spires and battlements kept away from the rest of the realm by miles of bridges, forests, and jagged stone mountains. You remember the gigantic monument where a grand funeral had been held. You remember an ozone-scented scorch mark atop a lonely ledge in the Frontiers of Nightmare. You remember a burning, lonely star in the sky.

This is not that place.

Your memories and expectations of the place are vastly different than what you expect.

Where the palace was distant and inaccessible before, it is now surrounded by a vast, lively royal city full of joyful dreams and clever nightmares. They go about their lives just as humanity does in any other place in the waking world. The hollow, echoing stretches of land from your memory are now full of crowded streets made of comfortable moonstone cobbles, dirt-and-diamond paths, and staircases made of solid emerald and jade. For all its twists and turns, you never once feel lost.

You take one of the verdant staircases carved into the western city wall. While admiring the view, you quietly accept the defeat of your preconceptions of the Dreaming. Small lakes of many colors dot the landscape like a painter’s palette in that empty vale that once held a massive funerary hall (and hopefully never would). When you cast your eyes to the north, where Nightmare looms dark and persistent, you imagine the lonely ledge among the gray-stone canyons would be free of any marks.

In the daytime, you can see the stars. Not a one is blotted out by the soul of a dead king.

This is the Dreaming, and it always reflects its monarch. And its monarch is very much alive.

He finds you watching a sky battle starting thousands of feet in the air: triple-masted sky-sloops cleave through clouds to battle an approaching fleet of sky pirates.

“Do you like it?”

His voice still startles you each time you hear it.

Dream stands in a cloak of deepest night, ready to sink into peripheral thought at a moment’s notice. He keeps his hands in his pockets to give off a relaxed air, but you note the tension in his shoulders and the carefully relaxed expression on his lovely face.

“What?”

He gives you a look that’s half-anxiety, half-sarcasm. Any of it, do you like any of my kingdom at all?

“It’s the Dreaming,” you answer. “What’s not to love?”

He joins you, leaning against the stone railing and tilting his head back as you’d been to watch the ships overhead. You watch him for a moment longer, gleefully admiring the silver in his hair before returning your attention to the gathering action.

A small explosion rocks the great ship high above, the pop of noise reaching your ears a moment later.

“You say that like you’ve never had a nightmare.”

Several sky pirates swing aboard on grappling hooks over the gap between ships, primed for battle. It doesn’t look good for the sky-sloop.

“I haven’t.”

He looks away from the battle to stare at the city within the walls, processing what you said. When understanding dawns, he turns his gaze to you, but you’re still doggedly looking up.

A few skynauts fall off the side.

“I don’t take your meaning.”

“I’ve never had a nightmare before.”

“You do not dream?”

“Before,” you start carefully, “I existed in conflict with your realm. You govern reality and the imagination of all who touch your realm. I was unreal: I could not be found in stories, thoughts, or ideas of the waking and living. I did not exist in any perpetual sense until I came to this universe… if I am honest with myself, I haven’t let myself start to believe it until recently.”

The plummeting sailors activate their jetpacks and return to the action. A dark green and black storm moves forward as a maelstrom made of clouds, but the ships locked in battle pay it no heed.

“Are you saying this is the first time you’ve slept in three thousand years?”

“When you put it like that, it sounds bad,” you wince.

“How would you spin the truth to make it sound good?”

“…touché.”

The storm starts to touch the edge of the battle, obscuring the scene in a hazy mist of green-black smoke. Within this arm of the storm, the only signs of battle are brief flashes of light that could be cannon fire or lightning. You frown, wishing for the wind to show the skirmish again.

“And there was nothing to be done?”

“He declared it impossible very early on.” Using that tone, you never have to indicate who you’re talking about—the other Dream. “When he cared to, he would agonize over it and offer to bring me personally into his realm, but I could already do so on my own. He didn’t like being told he couldn’t help, even when it was himself saying so.”

“I understand his side of things.”

“You would.”

A few pirates drop out of the cloud, still firing shots at the ship as they fall through the sky without a safety net. It seems that the sloop has found some foothold within the safety of the chaotic storm.

“You say you could always visit my realm, but in the three thousand years you’ve been here, you did not?” Were you not sure it would be impossible, you would have thought he sounded hurt by the idea.

You finally look away from the battle. His face betrays little insight toward the impossibility you’d pondered in his voice.

“Distance was necessary. I had to see how the world played out after my interventions. It wasn’t easy.” Yet, you hadn’t seen how things played out. You’d avoided Earth nearly as much as the Dreaming and had to be tricked into seeing the fruits of your labor in both places. You’re distantly aware of the cup of chamomile tea Hob had shared with you the night before, spiked with just a nip of honeyed whiskey before he’d left. Hob Gadling has officially made your shit list.

Twice, now. You’d been tricked into seeing Dream twice.

His eyes scan your face, jumping around and taking you in like a rushed museum-goer. You’re confused by his urgency. A lovesick (and foolish) part of you wants the reason to be: he has ten billion years of knowing your face to make up for.

Foolish.

His gaze falls a little, and you hope he’s just lost in thought as much as you hope he’s looking at your lips—

“May I ask you something?” you say, breaking the tension and looking for a worthy question of your interruption.

“Of course,” he says, blue eyes back upon you.

Your gaze catches his hand, glimmering gold in the dappled light of the Dreaming. “Your tattoo,” you say, your voice filled with intrigue. He raises his hand for you to inspect it. “How long have you had it? And what’s the story behind it?”

Touching his hand seems taboo, but you hold his graceful hand anyway, peering closer at the scattered stardust cascading over delicate bones and skin. At some angles, the sparkle disappears entirely, leaving only pale skin. Looking up at him, you see the same effect in his hair, silvers going invisible, though you just saw them a moment ago among the black.

“Near two hundred years.” 

“Following what?”

He heaves a sigh, looking up at the battle again and wincing when it’s still mostly stormcloud.

“My tools were stolen from me.”

“But… didn’t Burgess—”

“My sister has a centennial tradition of her own. She chooses to walk one day as a mortal every hundred years, experiencing the life she gives humanity and the end of that life. I joined her at her request, and once a century, I would set down my vestments and surrender the authority of my station into an hourglass, just for one day…”

The hourglasses were truly magnificent. I put thought into all my creations, but this day always excited me, and with each passing century, I kept the tradition; its design grew more elaborate to accommodate my tools. I kept the sand within a red crystal bulb fashioned from the very material of my ruby. The outer structure of the hourglass was made from the bone and steel of my helm. 

The day would begin when the hourglass turned over, and I could not reach for my powers until each grain of sand had passed through the neck. Until then, I could live as mortals lived, and in all honesty, I spent most of that time finding comfortable places to doze off.

Don’t laugh; there are few things better than a good nap.

Each time the hourglass would run out, the next time I fell asleep, I would meet myself there and return my symbols of office, resuming my functions as Dream of the Endless. It’s no different than my sister coming to claim herself at the end of the day, though perhaps a little less morbid and existential.

These days were chosen randomly, and it was only after I’d spent my day looking at humanity from one perspective that I realized I had missed out on many other things. Humans often ask themselves about when they would go, were they able to travel through time. If I had been asked, I would have spent that single day in each century a thousand times over again, doing a hundred thousand things differently.

The tradition changed after I met Hob Gadling, and in 1394, I asked him to be my guide to spending a day in the waking world. He would be guaranteed to see me twice a century: once as an Endless and once as a man. The days were much more enjoyable in the company of a friend, and I found I regretted less at the end of each day as a man.

It all went well for four hundred years.

In 1789, Hob had spoken at length about the wonders of travel, journeying for the journey’s sake. I’d never done such a thing, and he’d convinced me to try it. In 1794, he’d planned passage for us from London to the south of France, and I turned what was already a potentially risky event into an assured disaster.

Hob spoke of finding things on his various journeys, and I sent my tools to be found somewhere in the waking world.

Specifically in Paris.

During the Reign of Terror.

Yes, oh no is right.

Do you want to know what made this century’s hourglass worse? The crown atop it. It was a magnificent, bejeweled golden crown sent to the heart of anti-royalist France. When crafting the hourglass, I had allowed three weeks to pass for the passage by sea and across France.

It took us three entire months to locate the hourglass.

Like all other things that displeased les amis, it had been moved to the Luxembourg prison. Among the treasure cells, my hourglass sat among crown jewels, books of poetry, and the vestments of many other monarchs than myself. Robespierre had been elected mere days before we found it, and the beheadings forced us to rely on stealth and clever planning. I did not worry for my mortal form, but as the guillotine fell over a thousand times that summer, I worried more for my companion should we be found out.

Hob is a Londoner, through and through. It was a miracle he was not found out and summarily executed, for as little as that mattered to a deathless man as he. His French was abysmal at the best of times, so it fell to me to attempt any subterfuge within the prison walls. I determined that the best way to get into the palace was to be arrested for something annoying enough to be put away but not egregious enough to warrant execution. It worked, and I was put where everything was sent to rot. That indignity was worth the—

What did I do? Ah.

I spilled wine on Maximilien Robespierre. As I said, it was annoying enough to be arrested but not enough to be charged with crimes against the state.

While I worked on getting myself out of my cell, Hob Gadling did what he was best at: causing trouble. His French had become passable enough to spur some revolutions of his own, but his hand in military strategy was always more on the lower-ranked end of things. Don’t tell him I said that. Regardless, the chaos allowed me enough distraction to escape my cell and safely retrieve my hourglass.

And if I freed some poets and philosophers along the way, who could blame me?

“But how does that tell me how you got your tattoo?” you say, walking with Dream along the battlements. The sky battle above had dissipated into nothingness, to your annoyance. Now, your eyes are either drawn to him or a gleaming set of windows at the top of a tower in the castle. It’s so bright it could be a lighthouse.

“Ah. Well, I’d found my hourglass and learned that putting all my eggs in one basket was decidedly unwise. Hob had, before turning to more profitable forms of shipping, briefly served as crew upon Captain Cook’s expeditions to the Pacific. He’d quickly learned how to tattoo from the native tribes they encountered and had taken the skill back to England with him just in time for our meeting. That said, while I was still mortal, I had Hob find some needles, and using ink made from the sand in the hourglass and the crushed dreamstone, he could ensure I wouldn’t be caught without at least all my tools again.”

“This is your sand?” you whisper, stopping and holding his hand up in the waning light. He’d been speaking for some time, and you’d been loath to stop him. You twist his hand this way and that, watching it glimmer. “And your ruby?”

“Well—” he raises his other hand and moves his sleeve out of the way. On the inside of his other wrist sits the image of a very angular red rectangular gem, so stylistic you almost think it’s made of text. This tattoo does not shine and glitter like the sand-stars, but glows softly. You brush a thumb over the surface. It’s long-healed, but the sheer depth of power within the tattoo is undeniable.

Dream has gone unnaturally still beneath your touch. When you realize, you drop his wrist and hand at once, flushing furiously with embarrassment. “My apologies, I didn’t mean—”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he says quickly, his voice soft, without reproach.

Still, after ten billion years of being denied his touch in another place and time, the instinct to scold yourself remains. You ball your hands at your sides and look down at your feet. “It’s impertinent to be so bold, especially without asking if you wanted to be touched.”

“Darling, do you think I would have let you touch me if I did not want you to?”

You look up at him then, just a little stunned. He’s right. This is a being who has never let a single enemy triumph over him for longer than it took to outsmart them. Neither is he a shrinking violet, determined to please every crowd. He is Dream of the Endless.

And he is standing so close to you.

He holds his hands before you again, offering them once more.

You are about to reach out and take them when a voice cuts through the two of you.

Star-treader. I stand in my gallery, but you have no sigil. I bid you speak with me. Come.

And the Dreaming drops out beneath you.

This place is unchanged each time you come to it.

Still, this is new.

Summoned against your will, your back and shoulders hit the coarse gravel path in the Garden of Forking Ways.

Garden of Forking Bullshit, more like.

Destiny of the Endless holds all seven-and-a-half feet of his height above you in as looming a posture as possible. Behind him, seven gigantic statues of the Endless loom over him. “I greet you, star-treader.”

“Yeah. Greet you very much.” You roll onto your side with a cough to get your lungs working correctly again and stand, groaning. “You could have asked me to come and spared me all this.”

Destiny does not answer because he does not need to. Destiny of the Endless does not stoop to such depths as politeness.

Petty, you put a heel over the path’s edge just to revel in the way his frown deepens.

As the silence stretches, your annoyance grows. “Was there a reason you—”

“You have appeared in my Book.”

Yeah, that’s a pretty good reason.

“Oh.”

“Seventy-seven days ago, when you met my brother Dream, your life grew fate upon these pages.” He is too tall for you to see what he is reading, but when he taps something on his book, you hear your voice speaking with graveritas:

I belong here.

“It’s only started then? It hasn’t… I don’t know, it wasn’t retroactive?”

“It was.”

“Well.” You put your hands on your hips and walk around a bit, processing. Destiny remains where he stands, patient or waiting for his cue. Of all the Endless, he keeps his own counsel the most. “Does—”

“My brother Dream has theorized on this topic and does not need my verification to support his beliefs.”

“A pity you never believed it before, my wishing star,” a warm voice speaks from behind you.

The Three-In-One stands off the path you and Destiny share. A glance tells you Destiny also disproves of the Hecatae acting thus.

You bow your head to them in respect. Sensing you’ll get more information from them than him, you take a breath. “Am I still an agent of Fate as I was before?”

“Unfortunately for us all,” the Crone says with a roll of her (your) eyes.

“You are distinct from us, sister,” the Maiden says placatingly.

“But our sister, nonetheless.”

“As you ever were, my sweet.”

You shake your head with a sigh. “So I have my own fate, and I guide Fate when I speak.”

“Everybody guides their own fate, girl. You’re just the last one to know it.”

You scowl at them. “Thanks,” you say, dripping with acid.

The Sisters cackle and disappear in a flash of lightning with no thunder.

Destiny raises a hand. “The purpose of your visit is concluded, star-treader. We can answer you no more. Return to Dream.”

You’re given little choice, for an unseen force pushes you through a golden frame that feels like home.

Skipping between worlds and galaxies can be as simple as changing your mind.

Other times, it’s as simple as waking up.

Several things occur to you at once. 

When you’d fallen asleep in your flat last night, you’d gone to the Dreaming like all of humanity already knew how to. The relationship between your newly-fated soul and your tangible form on Earth was still complicated, but your soul had gone there. You’d been summoned to the Garden nearly right out of Dream’s arms and then dispatched back to your body.

The snap-back of your soul from the Garden is intense enough to wake you. You blink into awareness, body feeling a little shimmery-strange as parts of you reincorporate together.

It’s daybreak in your flat in London, and Dream of the Endless is standing over your bed.

“I suppose a conversation is in order?”

CHAPTER 6

[guinevereblom]

Julius Hare (British painter) 1859 - 1932

Dressing Up, 1885

oil on canvas

Julius Hare RCA (23 January 1859 – 12 March 1932) was a British artist, painter of portraits and landscapes.

Born in Dublin, he was the son of Mathias Hare LLD. He was educated at Loughborough Grammar School in England before Studied under Adolphe Yvon of Paris, and also at the West London School of Art, South Kensington, and the Heatherley School of Fine Art. He was made an associate of the Royal Academy of Art and exhibited there.

He lived in Plas Mawr, Conwy, North Wales.

[mybeingthere]

GEORGE BLACKLOCK (b 1952, British)

George Blacklock was born in County Durham, England and studied at Sunderland Polytechnic for one year before going on to study painting at Stourbridge College of Art in the early seventies. He graduated from his Masters at Reading University in 1976. George has exhibited extensively in Europe and North America throughout his career and has been represented by Flowers since 1996. He has received awards from the Welsh Arts Council, the Greater London Arts Association and was a prize winner at the John Moores contemporary painting competition in the nineties. George Blacklock has work in major public collections including the Arts Council of Great Britain. The British painter was also the Dean of Chelsea College of Art and Design, London 2011-2017..

"A lot of my paintings have shapes and gestures that converse, or are compromised, or can be seen to co-exist, or dominate, or retreat, or expand, or to re-iterate, in other words exist in a visual narrative. This narrative is complex both in formal terms and in its associations and metaphors. I often equate my abstract forms to the metaphysical realms of religious art. I value 'touch' as an expressive function of painting as well as a major contribution to non-linguistic, non-linear narrative."

[womblegrinch]

Michael Ancher (1849-1927) - På stranden, Skagen

Oil on panel. Painted in 1896.

18.25 x 14.75 inches, 46.3 x 37.3 cm. Estimate: £80,000-120,000.

Sold Sotheby's, London, 4 July 2024 for £96,000 incl B.P.

Skagen, a fishing port in the north of Jutland, Denmark, (pronounced Skay'en) was a magnet for Danish painters from the 1870s onwards, attracted by the landscapes and the light. You can read up on the Skagen Art Colony online.

If you can access Channel 4's streaming service (free in the UK, you may need a VPN outside), there's a charming Danish drama series set close to Skagen in the late 1920s called Seaside Hotel which will give you a feel for the area. Much better than going to the Med.

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday Scottish actor Rory McCann born 24th April 1969 in Glasgow.

Six foot six inches tall, with brown eyes and dark hair, Rory McCann began his working life at the top - as a painter on the Forth Bridge. He came to notice in a television commercial for Scotts' Porage Oats, in which he appeared as a scantily-clad hunk in a vest and kilt and little else wandering snowbound streets but warmed by the inner glow of the porage. He claims that as a consequence he was often approached by people demanding that he "lift his kilt", I can quite believe that as who out there among us has never had that asked of us?

In 2002 he was seen in the TV comedy-drama 'The Book Group' playing a wheelchair-bound lifeguard, a part for which he won a Scottish BAFTA award for the best television performance of 2002. Since then he has taken television roles as Peter the Great and a priest in 'Shameless'. He made his Hollywood debut in Oliver Stone's 'Alexander'. Rory has never been in Taggart but did appear in another well known Scottish show, Monarch of the Glen.

Of course the role he is most famous for is, apart from the porage ads,that of Sandor "The Hound" Clegane in the popular Game of Thrones.

Film role have included, Beowulf & Grendel, Hot Fuzz and xXx: Return of Xander Cage

Rory used to be the frontman of a defunct band called Thundersoup in the early 90s. In 2017 he made a musical appearance as the drummer of Texas, a Scottish rock band, in their music video of Tell That Girl. He also plays the piano, banjo, guitar, and Mandolin.

Rory divides his time between homes in London and Glencoe, eh hates technology and loves being cut off and is known for living a solitary, transient lifestyle, he describes himself as such "I'm a man's man. I go out climbing and live outdoors." He used to solo rock climb and broke multiple bones in a near-fatal rock climbing accident in Yorkshire when he was 21. And ladies he is single, he says "I don't have a mortgage, I don't have a wife and I don't have kids, so I'm quite happy bumbling along."

I have found hat he mentioned a wife to someone in a bar in England last year, saying she set up his social media account as he wasn'ttechnically minded. Rory is normally quite a private person and I can find no evidence that he is actualy married, so who knows!

In 2019 Rory was seen in the Jumanji movie with fellow Scot Karen Gillan. In 2022 he became the narrator of the ITV1 series DNA Journey., We last saw him in the film Jackdaw a british action thriller set in North East England. He has a couple of projects ready for release, The Damned set in Iceland, and voice in a new animated mini series Knuckles, based on the video game Sonic the Hedgehog.

[creepywrites]

Nationalities

Jeff the Killer- Swedish, Italian, Västergötland

Liu- Swedish, Chinese, Västergötland

Ben- American, Alaska

Sally Dawn- Canadian, Ontario

Sam Williams- Canadian, American, Ontario

Milo the Electrocuted- Italian, Lombardy

Lulu- Vietnamese, Vĩnh Phúc

Clockwork- French, Normandy

Zero- British, American, New Jersey

Jane the killer- American, California

Jane Arkensaw- British, Lincolnshire

Vailly Evans- Chilean, Los Lagos

Nathan the nobody- Filipino, British, Berkshire

Crystal- Filipino, British, Berkshire

Eyeless Jack- Uganda, Kampala

Kate the chaser- Australian, Perth

Rouge- Canadian, Alberta

Wilson the basher- welsh, Conwy

X-virus- American, New Jersey

Lazari- Ukrainian, Kharkiv Oblast

Kaidy- French, Corsica

Stripes- American, Alabama

Senora- Spanish, Girona

Nina the killer- Mexican, American, Louisiana

Puppeteer- American, Mexican, California

Zachary- American, Colorado

Rosemary- American, Maine

Emra- Italian, American, sicilia

Bloody painter- Japanese, Chinese, Guangdong

Suicide Sadie- British, London

Judge angel- Chinese, Filipino, Guangdong

Nurse Ann- Taiwanese, taipei

Randy- Spanish, Álava

Sully- Indian, Tamil Nadu

Keith- Australian, Queensland

Troy- American, Louisiana

Dollmaker- Russian, Moscow

Svetlana- Russian, Siberia

Vicky genocidal- Canadian, Ontario

Hannah the killer- German, American, East Berlin

Lily Kennett- Ireland, Connacht

Hung iris- American, Illinois

Lifeless Lucy- British, Yorkshire

Legless Eliza- Portuguese, Évora

Mucky Child- American, Colorado

Lacy Morgan- British, American, Arizona

Asylum Nancy- American, Maine

Chris the revenant- German, American, Hessen

Monday child- Ukrainian, poltava

Laughing Jill- British, London

Laughing Jack- British, London

Toby- German, Bavaria

Lurking Lyra- German, Bavaria

Killing Kate- Costa Rican, Alajuela

Lost Silver- Japanese, Hokkaido

Cata the Killer- Polish, Lodz

Rotten Abigail- American, North Carolina

The Hare- American, Arizona

The Doll- Mexican, Hidalgo

Raven- French, Île-de

Anna schurks- Romanian, Bucharest

Weeping forest- Puerto Rico, Adjuntas

Nightmare Ally- German, East Berlin

Red Death- German, Greek, Saxony

Gas mask maid- El Salvador, Cuscatlan

Tim- American, Georgia

Jessica- American, polish, Arizona

Taylor- Native American, Maine

Ellie- Japanese, Canadian, Chubu

Labrador- Romanian, Arad

Moth boy- American, Louisiana

Starved angel- Irish, American, Texas

Sketcher- Indonesian, Russian, Ural

Sarah Erickson- Chinese, Canadian, Nova Scotia

Hannya- Japanese, Tokyo

Rosie- British. Coventry

Hunter the proxy- American, Texas

Doctor Irina- British, Devon

Deborah- American, California

Lucy the cannibal- American, Ohio

Andie Rosslyn- American, Iowa

[rowlondonconstruction]

Explore the essential role of Painters and Decorators in North London in enhancing the beauty and value of your home or business. From meticulous surface preparation to stunning finishes, these experts offer tailored solutions to bring your vision to life. Trust their skills for top-notch results every time.

[saganscestmavie]

Paul S. Brown is a leading classical realist oil painter from North Carolina, USA. Having trained and worked in the USA, Italy and London, he now lives in Dorset, England. Paul works exclusively from life, under natural light, and makes his own paint by hand in the tradition of the Old Masters. He has exhibited at a wide array of galleries and museums, including the Groucho Club, The National Portrait Gallery, The Forbes Galleries, The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, The Salmagundi Club and the University Club of Washington D.C

[haveyoureadthispoll]

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....

[art-portraits]

Self Portrait

Artist: Sir Henry Raeburn (Scottish, 1756-1823)

Date: Probably 1815 or before

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburg, Scotland

Sir Henry Raeburn

This self-portrait was painted as the artist's Diploma Picture for the Royal Academy in London. However, it was refused since self-portraits were inadmissible. This shows Raeburn's late style, with forceful three dimensional modelling and strong chiaroscuro.

One of only three known portraits by Henry Raeburn of artists, the other two representing the leading English portrait sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey and the Scottish landscapist Hugh William (‘Grecian’) Williams, this reflective self-portrait is invested with all the gravitas of an archetypal image. A powerful symbol of Raeburn’s metropolitan stature as well as his local renown in Scotland, it was conceived in 1815 as his diploma picture for admission to full membership of the Royal Academy in London. That achievement, which he evidently regarded as the ultimate distinction then available to British artists, had been an aspiration since his exhibition debut at the Academy in 1792.

The death of his one-time professional mentor David Martin (cat.27) in 1797 had assisted in consolidating the younger portraitist’s growing dominance in his native Edinburgh and, by extension, the whole of Scotland. Within two years his expanding business justified relocation to more spacious and custom-built premises on the eastern margins of the Georgian New Town in Edinburgh, at 16 (now 32) York Place. This is a grand terraced tenement which has retained in the first-floor studio the great north-facing windows installed by Raeburn, as well as an intricate series of shutters designed to control the flow of light into the room during sittings.

By 1810, as the unchallenged doyen of Scottish portraitists, he was contemplating a permanent move to London, probably following the precedent of the resounding success obtained by David Wilkie. Although Raeburn changed his mind and committed to remaining in Edinburgh, he continued to court southern patronage by exhibiting annually at the Academy until his death in 1823. In Scotland he was lionised as ‘the first Scottish portrait painter of eminence who settled in his native country’.

Ironically, it seems that he did not realise that his statement picture, being a self-portrait, was inadmissible as a diploma work. On its rejection by the Academy Council, he substituted Boy and Rabbit, about 1814 (The Royal Academy of Arts, London), a likeness of his step-grandson Henry Raeburn Inglis, and which, like his self-portrait with its deep romantic intensity, reveals his responsiveness to the portraiture of Thomas Lawrence.

Despite Raeburn’s apparent compositional difficulties with his own portrait, it surely captures to perfection his ‘fine intellectual countenance’ and deep-set expressive eyes, as described by several contemporaries. Retained by the artist during his lifetime and then passed down the Raeburn family until the 1880s, this defining self-portrait set the seal upon the commemorative exhibition of his works held in his own studio-cum- gallery in York Place in 1824. Two years earlier, on the occasion of George IV’s visit to Edinburgh, he had been knighted and in 1823, as he lapsed into terminal illness, appointed Royal Limner for Scotland. Sadly, the monarch’s desire to sit to Sir Henry was never realised.

[inspofromancientworld]

Isis and Osiris and its Ancient Origins

By English School/ Unidentified painter - http://www.historicalportraits.com/Gallery.asp?Page=Item&ItemID=695&Desc=Edmund-Spenser-%7C--English-School, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16569312

Edmund Spencer was an English poet who lived from about 1552-1599. He was born in London, England and attended Pembroke College, Cambridge as a sizar, one who receives some type of aid. He married around 1579 to Machabyas Childe and had two children. In 1580, he went to Ireland under the Lord Deputy Arther Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton. with Walter Raleigh and was at the Siege of Smerwick. He remained when Lord Grey was called back to England. He later had an estate in North Cork. There was a tree near there that had been called 'Spenser's Oak' that was destroyed by lightning in the 1960s. The legend about the treat is that he wrote some of The Faerie Queene under it. In 1590, he returned to London to publish the first three books of the Faerie Queene, for which he was awarded a pension of £50 per year from Queen Elizabeth I. He hoped to secure a place at court, but the inclusion of Mother Hubberd's Tale offended William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who was the queen's principal secretary, so he returned to Ireland where he was the center of a literary circle. By 1594, his wife died and he remarried a 'much younger' Elizabeth Boyle, which inspired several works. During the Nine Years' War, which was from 15593-1603 in Ireland, Spencer was forced from his home in 1598. He traveled to London in 1599 where he died 'for want of bread', according to Ben Jonson, though this is doubtful because of Spenser's pension. He was buried near Geoffrey Chaucer in Westminster Abbey.

The Faerie Queene is an epic poem that is over 36,000 lines, 4,000 stanzas, and was published in 6 books. The poem explores themes of religion, virtue, politics, and explores myth and history in an over arching story that could be read literally or for the metaphorical. Each of the six books is focused around a particular virtue: Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Trust, Justice, and Courtesy.

By Jeff Dahl - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3248602

Osiris was an ancient Egyptian god who was first mentioned in the Fifth Dynasty (between about 2494-2345 BCE) and was appeared in the Pyramid Texts. Given this, he was likely worshiped before then given that one of his epithets, Khenti-Amentiu, 'Foremost of the Westerners', appeared in the First Kingdom. Ancient Egyptians associated the West with death since that was the direction that the sun set. During their lives, pharaohs were associated with Ra, the sun god, during their lives and with Osiris after death. Within the Pyramid Texts is the story of Set conning Osiris into a box that is then sealed with lead. Set threw the box into the Nile. Later, Isis found the box in a tamarisk tree in Byblos, Lebanon. Isis was able to remove the box from the tree, though Osiris was dead. She was able to briefly revive him, long enough to conceive a child. After that, Osiris was the god of the underworld, death, and resurrection. In the Greco-Roman era, he was folded into the god Serapis, who was the consort of Isis, though there was a cultic center in Philae that continued until at least 450 CE.

By Jeff Dahl - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3252750

Isis was the ancient Egyptian goddess who was first named in the Fifth Dynasty and appears in the Pyramid Texts but was likely worshiped before then. Within the Pyramid Texts, she was an active participant in the drama between Set and Osiris, lending her a more complex character than other goddesses. Within the texts, she expressed sorrow, anger, and sexual desire after the death of Osiris at the hands of Set. She used these emotions to aid in the revival of Osiris and they allowed the conception of Horus and guarantee Osiris an afterlife. She aided dead souls in returning themselves to wholeness, as she did with Osiris. She was seen as the goddess of protection over the pharaohs, as the wife and mother of them; the goddess of wisdom and magic, seen as 'more clever than a million gods' because of her ability to revive and protect Osiris and Horus; goddess of the 'Nile in the sky', as rain was called, and the 'Lady of Heaven'; and a universal goddess, one who held power over the sky, earth, and Duat, the afterlife. Her worship continued into the Greco-Roman world, reaching Rome probably in the second century BCE, reaching a peak in the late second and early third century CE.

In Book V, Canto VII, there is a section dedicated to Isis and Osyris (as Osiris is spelled in the poem), describing him as 'of the race/Of th' old Ægyptian kings that whylome [formerly] were;/With fayned [glad] colours shading a true case/For that Osyris, whilest he lived here,/The justest man alive and truest did appear.' The next stanza continues, describing '[h]is wife was Isis; whom they likewise made/A goddesse of great powre and soverinty,/And in her person cunningly did shade/That part of justice which is Equity'. With the gods, there was 'a crocodile was rold [rolled],/That with her wreathed taile her middle did enfold.' Isis is shown with '[o]ne foote was set uppon the crocodile,/And on the ground the other fast did stand;/So meaning to suppresse both forged guile/And open force: and in her other hand/She stretch forth a long white sclender [slender] wand.' The focus is likely more on Isis than Osiris because of Spencer's focus on writing something for Queen Elizabeth I as well as following the journey of a female knight, Britomart.

You can read the referenced part of the poem here. You can read the entire poem here. You can listen to the poem here.

[the-busy-ghost]

There are many felicitous echoes and counterpoints along the way. Silent fog on still deep water at the outset; a boat outlined against dark grey and against clouded grey; an explosion of gulls in sea mist and spray. Echoes and chains follow from this: reddened waves under a white sky are transformed into a photograph of the white Mer de Glace with a climber in red, echoing across to memories of Ravilious as painter of the northern waters whose fascination with ice and the shores of the north began with the eighteenth-century painter Francis Towne's renderings of the Mer de Glace in the Alps. Writing this I remember a chance meeting with Ravilious's daughter at the house of friends in London. A handsome and kindly woman in her sixties, with her father's eyes. All the years I have been writing about Ravilious I have occasionally dreamed about him: that he will come into the cold hall of a house that does not exist, a house smelling of coal fires; that he will begin to talk at once, shaking the Arctic Ocean off his dark hair as if it were only rainwater after all, as if he had been caught in the storm on a headland, benighted, laughing, painting out of doors.

"Distance and Memory", by Peter Davidson