DASH, LOITER, MARVEL, DASH

The day of the looonnnggggg wait - aka The Hockney Exhibition at the Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London
Four hours 10 minutes - yep FOUR HOURS....FOUR HOURS...hey great title for a song or a poem
The images below are not in order

Below the statue at St Pancras station, many thanks to whoever it was (sorry) who told me about these fabulous bronze carvings

There is a song by Cream, which has the line 'await in the queue' comes from the song White Room

Piccadilly circus, noon, great photo of EROS, really looks like he is flying, oh here are some of the queue coming to get us!!

Yeah London 2012, Olympic City, wonderful, took this because there was a question on Pointless about the colour of the rings, I knew the colours but not the order and was very ashamed of myself, now I know, blue on the left, black in the middle, red on the right, yeloow below blue and green below red

Hey red & green - complementary, ha always get that in

I have to say that at 3 hours in the rain I felt like waving my arms in submission

I loved this part of the sculpture so much that I took a close up

I find this particulary poignant, for some unknown reason he reminds me of my beloved Dad, who was a member of the Territorial Army when I was a child.  In those days there was only 2 weeks annual leave and Daddy used to go to camp.  So when we went onholiday he would come with us on the Saturday and return on the Sunday, we went by train, this is him standing with the battered brown leather suitcase that I have now, waiting for his train.  He would come back the following Saturday and help us to return home

There were a few faces like this waiting in the queue

My mothers family were miners, my Uncle was a safety officer who got trapped once in deep water underground, thankfully he got out

Streets of London, there are still bagladies sometimes, look at the fortitude on her face

There is always a foreman isnt there, the man with the clip board or the IPad now

The wonderful statue, wow her legs are fab, all the sculptures are at the base of this statue, which  can be seen all over the station as it is huge.

I didnt take pictures of all the sculptures

Back to the exhibition

I am not sure if this video will work.  It is the courtyard of the Royal Academy and at the end Carolyn.  I hope that it works, the banging noises are joy of joy, we were so fortunate to be there whilst 2 young boys bounced huge balls on the flagstones for around an hour and a half, bang bang bang, oh what fun the little b....... had, actually the worst of all of it for me.  The time actually went quite fast, it was warm the sun was out, it rained, the sun came out, it poured.  I had taken a sponge cushion to sit on in a plastic bag - ha I am invincible..hoho & a black bin bag which was a hat and a cloak, I felt like Batwoman, must have looked a real site, but another woman had an ordinary plastic bag on her head and a man had a newspaper, yes it was fun as a one off

Now to why we were there

This was one of the highlights for me, it was totally beautiful, I think one of his greatest in the exhibition. vibrant colours & painted very well.   I found some of the paintings to be unfinished to my taste.  I suppose they were sketches done on a large scale, some of the paint was peeling or cracking, but that may have been what he wanted

I have taken none of these pictures, because obviously photography was not allowed, these are all from Google images, where there are hundreds of images mostly from newspapers.  This one was 9 canvases, you can see the lines and there were four of them, the same trees in 4 seasons, this was the entrance to the exhibition.  The R A is a wonderful place, high ceilings and beautiful marble doorways and arches.  In fact one of the arches had bullet holes in it from when the RA was bombed in the second world war
I preferred the winter drawing, this one looked as if the trees had dollops of leaves on them, which was such fun

I loved his charcoal drawings, I thought that these were wonderful, the size and the framing was ace

This was one of my favourite Yorkshore journeys paintings, I could see this in patchwork or embroidery

This was stunning, the colours are not quite right as the logs were bright orange, it is huge and viewed through doorways was quite breath taking

There were three (I think) photo montages, I had a discussion with a random man about this one.  It was his favourite, mine is below.  I loved the sky here which was made up of overlapping blue photographs.  Its an old picture, very famous, great to see it in person.  You get the correct perspective by viewing the actual painting and I strongly recommend visiting any art exhibitions that you have near to you, for the perspective, size and quality of the artists mark

Taking of marks, most of you probably know about David Hockneys work with the IPAD

Oh wow that is the only thing to say.  Most of us have a paint program on our computers, the marks that he made using the built in tools were so inspiring.  I love his series of lots 51 IPAD paintings, especially the ones from January.  However I didnt feel that the medium scalled up to the large 32 canvas, somehow, even though the mark making was adjusted for the scale, that it worked as well for me.  But the smaller ones, oh they were just so alive, with such depth and purpose of mark

This was my favourite one, remember this is all digital, I think most paint programs will have these tools.  He did these in situ, they are wonderful.  I am so glad that a man of 70 years is using the new technology, I believe that we need to embrace the past and consider the future.  Hockney is influenced by the great masters of art, there was one room devoted to the sermon on the mount influenced by Claude Lorrain (1604 - 1682)

This was a view of the Grand Canyon, this was my very favourite piece of the entire exhibition.  It is a montage of photos.  Each photo was an unusual size, we thought maybe 6 by 5, not square but not usual format, it was simply stunning.  As I love photography, montage & stitch this had an influence on me.  I guess that these montages influenced Hockney as well, as he continues to use the stacking  method with his large paintings.
Finally there was the video room, where we were fortunate enough to get seats on hard benches but right at the front.  This is the much publicised video project, where 9 camera were mounted on a vehicle and driven slowly down a Yorkshire lane.  I had a lump in my throat at just how beautiful England is.  It showed the same views in different seasons and they were completely breathtaking, to me

Along with these series of quite a few videos, was one of dancers with Wayne Sleep, such fun with the offset slip screens, ballet, tap & modern dance  with a bright yellow floor and beautiful coloured chairs etc

Half an hour flew by whilst watching all of this and when we emerged we decided to head home in the by now pouring rain.  One last look at Piccadilly neon & we were into the mania that is the underground

A fabulous day, I can beleive that I waited for over 4 hours but I am very glad that I did, if the exhibition comes near to you I recommend that you get tickets lol and go.  Got to recover today.  Off down to London again at the weekend, what out for another photo fest, thanks for reading x