London || Peter Brown

Peter Brown is “Pete the Street”, whose DVD I’ve reviewed previously. This book has an interesting genesis, having been crowdfunded on Kickstarter and I wasn’t at the time aware that it was going to be anything other than privately published.

Peter’s painting method is all about observation – of the light, the weather, reflections, people and everything that goes to make up the scene. He works almost exclusively on location, meaning that things change as he is working; the film makes clear how he adopts and adapts this to produce results that are both a record and an interpretation at the same time. They also retain the vitality that’s essential for a successful street scene.

This is a collection of Peter’s quite extensive and really rather magnificent work in the larger area of London (it’s not confined to the centre or the tourist spots) with brief notes on the circumstances that pertained at the time, or what interested him. It’s not, nor is it intended to be, a book about how to paint or the painting process. Nevertheless, if you want to learn about observation, its study will reward you considerably. It’s remarkably informative, both in that respect and about the streets he paints, which are by no means mean.

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The Art of London || Ilpo Musto

“London”, it says here, “is a living art gallery”. And, you know what? It is. In fact, sculpture and statues are so prolific that most of us walk by dozens of them every day and hardly notice.

This delightful piece of serendipity features the familiar (I’ll choose Justice from the top of the Old Bailey) to the less-known. Hard to choose an example of the latter as what’s new to me (The Market Trader from Walbrook) will be something you bump into every day.

Anyone who lives in, visits or just loves London should have a copy of this. Beautifully photographed, it’s a work of art in its own right, but it’ll also open your eyes and make you smile at the same time, and we all need a bit of that, don’t we?

Buy it on Amazon

London in Watercolour (Ready to Paint) || Geoff Kersey

This addition to the Ready to Paint series gives you pre-printed tracings for 5 London landmarks – The London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, The Tower and Trafalgar Square – that should be on any tourist checklist. Whether you’re making a record of an actual visit or touring from your armchair, you can produce a convincing record for the album, wall or as a gift.

	Ready To Paint London In Watercolour Book with Geoff Kersey