Low Tide
Or Wandering Along the Edge of Things… It was raining last week in Vancouver - the plane always seems to come down through the rain when you land on the West Coast. There is something about the Pacific Northwest, though, besides constantly wiping your glasses free of...
(Re-en)acting Up…
Or Back to the 70’S… the 1470’s that is… What on earth can make an otherwise sane group of adults drive (collectively) several thousand miles, load, unload, re-load and unload yet again several tons of equipment, survive two midnight thunderstorms, spend all day...
Tutti Frutti
I could not resist, just had to post these… The other day, having gone to an oriental bazaar with the firm intention of tracking down a riveted mail shirt and some other old bits of rusty metal and junk, we paused in a shop to buy drinks. (It was 45 degrees Celsius in...
There And Back Again (And Again….)
Spent the week before last running about in front of a film crew, entering stage left and exiting stage right, when it wasn’t the opposite or vice-versa. (The big problem of course being how the heck do you make in any way interesting a guy who spends all his time...
Meditations and Mediations
Recently wrote a short text for the French edition of Meditations on Middle-Earth. Mercifully, the editor was willing to accept my ramblings in English and translate them, thus I survived the ordeal with the certitude that some talented translator would make sense of...
More Coffee?
Or The Great Percolator in the Sky… How many times have I absent-mindedly nodded my head when a waitress inquires “More coffee sir?” (usually while about halfway through pouring), eventually ending up drinking about 10 litres of the stuff and then spending the rest of...
Draw Winky
Or: A brilliant CAREER in Wallpaper… Three things conspired the other day to take me unawares. (Well, four actually, the first being my general obliviousness…) The copy of National Geographic that I picked up in a used book store because it is the issue from the month...
Chatting with Mr. Ruskin
Or How To Draw Attention… Oh would I love to be able to chat with John Ruskin. Ruskin wanted EVERYONE to draw. Not because he wished to turn the entire population of England into artists, to have factories filled with easels, and sketchpads on bankers’ knees, but in...
Stepping Right Off The Page
STEPPING RIGHT OFF THE PAGE Or Where I’m Allowed One Wish… It seems like ages ago that the original of Gandalf the Grey was stolen from an exhibition. http://www.john-howe.com/forum/smf/index.php?topic=1905.0 I’ve often been asked if I could paint it again, but you...
Where I Have a Mystical Experience…
Or: Adventures In The Aisles of Plenty Most people make their personal connections to the universe in the hinterlands of the sublime - the far plutonian shore, the precipitous precipice, the wind-swept wilderness, in those blessèd realms where you can feel small...
Horizon Lines and Vanishing Points
Or Wondering Where to Stand On Things… We are forever putting things in perspective… remember back in school, when it was patiently explained to us how the murky shadows of the obscure, crepuscular and otherwise dark Middle Ages were at last pierced by the blinding...
Travelling with John Mandeville
Or Braking For Unicorns… Not so long ago, I drove past the Walt Disney building in Burbank. Imagine St Peter’s meets Bedrock with a hint of Stonehenge, but constructed by a pastry cook and you’ll have a pretty clear idea. With the seven dwarfs (well, six; Stupid or...