A year ago I visited the city of Houston, Texas for the first time. I had a day to explore on my own and went immediately to my first interest, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, of course! I enjoyed seeing a special exhibition of Impressionist work, but I also found many great treasures in the permanent collection.
As usual I traveled with my sketchbook, here and here are a few of my other "Houston" moments from that trip. I spent a long amount of time gazing at this J.M.W. Turner painting. I had not spent this much time contemplating a Turner before this.
I did this sketch standing in the center of the gallery, somehow this was suspicious activity and the gallery security guard kept giving me hard looks. Perhaps the size of my sketchbook and the colored pencils I kept whipping out of my pockets? I added the color wash a few minutes later sitting in a courtyard by a small fountain.
The rest of this story continues with a Valentines Day date with my husband who considerately accompanied me to see the recent movie Mr. Turner. I really wanted to see this movie and loved every minute of the two and a half hours of it. The information about the life and times of Turner was memorable, many scenes filmed the exact location and circumstances of some of his great paintings. The actor Timothy Spall was excellent as Turner and the cinematography was beautiful. My husband did mutter something about the length and slow pace of the movie being like "watching paint dry." A good time for all nonetheless.
