Natural History Museum

The animal and plant decoration on the museum’s exterior

I have posted before about my love for the Waterhouse Building, home of London’s Natural History Museum (The Sculpture of Nature). This time I thought that I would share a few photographs showing the outside of this beautiful and eccentric building, specifically, a few of the many, many animal and plant sculptures and reliefs that decorate its rich exterior.

A Cathedral to Science – entrance to the museum

The ambition of Alfred Waterhouse’s design is breathtaking in its complexity, with literally hundreds of sculptures and gargoyles adorning a façade that is already a busy excursion into the Gothic fairytale-land of the German Romanesque. Such richness of detail could easily have disintegrated into a jumbled mess, yet through careful control of scale and proportion, together with the cohesive force of the strong lines running through the design, Waterhouse never loses the overall coherence of the building.

Iconic landmark – The towers of the museum seen from South Kensington underground station

Primitive reptiles and a dire-wolf? beneath one of the many windows

This magnificent feline is high up, against one of the building’s central towers

A whole menagerie of beasts and gargoyles look down on visitors

This lion, like all the other beasts, was modelled from Waterhouse’s own drawings

The building also has more subtle decoration, such as this fox and birds over the entrance

Smaller creatures are represented on tiles such as these

Apart from the animal in the roundel, note the birds in the rooftop ironwork

The famous pterodactyl

I fell in love with this building on the day I first saw it and in the decades since I have only grown to appreciate it more. If you have a chance to visit London then please make a trip to the Natural History Museum one of your priorities.

(As always, thanks are due to husband Alex for helping to put my thoughts into words.)

Crackington Haven

The rocky little cove known as Crackington Haven is the nearest spot on the North Cornwall coast to my home. Alex and I paid a visit to this delightful spot a week or so ago to watch the sun go down.

This area of the coast is notable for the dramatic twists and distortions of the rock strata. These rocks are, in fact, known to geologists as the “Crackington Formation” and were originally sediments laid down on an ancient ocean bed before being roasted, folded and overturned in the much later volcanic event that gave Cornwall its granite core. It is the erosion of these rocks that gives this coast its spectacularly rugged look.

Here are a few of our photos.

The little cove of Crackington Haven is much loved by tourists

The cliff with its jumbled strata, lit with the evening sun

The twisted layers of rock are clearly visible in this shot

A sunny but very cold evening in North Cornwall

The eroded rocks of Crackington

There is a narrow area of water suitable for surfing between the bands of rock reaching into the sea

Lichen growing just above the high tide level

After sunset

Fierce Creatures

We have just spent a few days in London visiting our daughter Isla and one highlight of our trip was a visit to the British Museum to see the Ice Age Art exhibition. In many ways this show was a shock because the artefacts are all so small. I knew a number of the pieces from reproductions and was taken aback to discover that these apparently monumental objects are in fact only a few centimetres tall. Monumental figures of women are one recurring theme through the show, the other being animal figures, with many being very powerfully conceived.

Sadly, photography was not permitted in the exhibition (though I did see some surreptitious clicking using mobile phones going on), so here are a few other nice animal objects to be found in the BM.

Bull’s head decorating a lyre from Ur (Sumerian)

Another object from Ur – the famous ram in a thicket

Persian griffin drinking horn

Bronze age silver bull

Lion?

Leaping ibex (originally a vase handle)

The one on the left is clearly a goose; not sure about the one with the nice false eyelashes!

Rather dragon-like dogs on a bronze flagon

Powerful bronze bull’s head

Leaping dog on a Roman pot

Japanese netsuke deer

Winter Walks

There is not too much happening at this time of year but it is nice to take a walk when the weather clears up a bit. The local landscape where I live is not spectacular but I love it right now, the grass is very green, the branches on the bare trees are so intricate and the fine twigs look almost like mist from a distance. Here are a few photographs taken on recent walks near my home:

Megadunes of Dunhuang

My husband Alex and daughter Isla visited the city of Dunhuang, in China, a couple of years ago and brought back some great photographs. This post is mainly Alex’ thoughts on one aspect of that visit.

Apart from the world-famous Buddhist cave art at Mogao, tourists visit Dunhuang to see the fantastic landscape, particularly the great “megadunes” situated at Mingsha Shan just outside the city. Mingsha Shan means Singing-sand Mountain (or Echoing-sand Mountain) and is probably a reference to the whispering sound of the wind blowing the sand over the dunes.

Situated at the south-west corner of the Gobi desert in Gansu Province, Dunhuang was an oasis at an important point on the ancient Silk Road, just before the route split in two to pass north or south of the Taklimakan desert. Today Dunhuang is visited by tens of thousands of (mainly Chinese) tourists each year.

Giant Megadunes at Mingsha Shan, outside Dunhuang, China

Megadunes are found in a number of places around the world but those at Dunhuang are among the most accessible. These huge mounds (near Dunhuang they are said to rise to around 1500 metres), are made where there is very fine sand in combination with predictable winds from a number of different directions. It seems unimaginable that such a fine, free-flowing material could naturally pile up so high but the dunes are very persistent, only creeping slowly one way or another with fluctuations in wind patterns.

The fine sand of the megadunes is sculpted daily by the winds

Climbing the big dunes is very hard work because legs sink deep into the fine sand at every step and every climber quickly learns to follow the ridge-lines as they offer the best footing and gentlest slopes. Each step in the fine material sets off an avalanche, or perhaps something more like a waterfall of flowing sand that often continues for several seconds until each grain finds a new stable position.

Each step sets off cascades of almost liquid sand

A key attraction at Mingsha Shan is the Crescent Moon Lake and its accompanying Leiyin Temple. Despite being surrounded by towering dunes, the spring-fed lake has remained uncovered for at least two thousand years. The temple was once one of around forty Buddhist structures around the lake but these did not survive the Cultural Revolution. The current temple was rebuilt in the 1990s. Sadly, the spring that has fed the little lake for thousands of years has been threatened by ground-water extraction for the modern city and the level has fallen drastically in recent years, so much so that the government has now stepped in to replenish the lake’s water level.

Crescent Moon Lake surrounded on all sides by massive dunes, with Dunhuang in the background

The depth of Crescent Moon Lake has shrunk by several metres in recent decades

Although the lake may be threatened, the great dunes at least seem immune to man’s actions. However many tourists trample over these structures, sending sand tumbling downwards, the wind just away works quietly at its job of piling it all back up again.

Constantly rebuilt – megadune at Dunhuang

The great dunes are only about six km from the centre of Dunhuang

Stormy Sunset

There are many official dates that mark out the passing year but one of my favourite personal markers of the coming spring is the first day I can drive home without using my lights. Yesterday the horrendously wet weather we have been having took a little break and I found myself driving in beautiful sunshine.

A brilliant sunset but this photo does not show the howling wind!

After picking up my husband Alex at home, we drove to the beach to see this recently very unfamiliar sun set below the sea. It was a very windy day and the air was full of sea spray but the light was beautiful. The wind was stacking the waves up so high, they seemed to tower over the beach and the water at some moments looked almost solid.

A shot taken along the beach shows the air full of spray

I got busy with my camera and got some nice shots despite the howling wind freezing my fingers and having to fight to avoid being blown over. I ended with wet frozen feet too because my wellington boots were leaking and I was caught by a few fast moving waves.

The waves were towering over the beach

We stayed until the sun sank below the horizon, then, as the sky darkened we decided it was a special day – to be marked with takeaway fish and chips rather than the healthy dinner waiting for us at home!

All too soon, the sun was gone!

A brilliant sunset but this photo does not show the howling wind!

The waves were towering over the beach

A shot taken along the beach shows the air full of spray

All too soon, the sun was gone!

Cold Weather Clearout

A snowy day in North Cornwall

You may have noticed I have not been active on this blog for a while. A cold, miserable January has never been my favourite time of year, or my most productive. This year I decided to put all my efforts into carry out my New Year’s resolution – to de-clutter my life.

If you live in the same house for over 20 years you accumulate a lot of things; if you are by instinct a hoarder (in a family of hoarders and collectors!), things can become ridiculous. Now that our children have grown up and left home our house should be far too large, yet every space seems to be packed full of stuff.

I took a hard look in my wardrobes and found clothing that stretched back twenty-odd years. Some things had not been worn in all that time but I always planned to find a way to remake or reuse them. This type of recycling is something I was brought up with but I have now come to realise that I will never find a use for everything in a couple of lifetimes.

Our children may have left but I still seem to have rooms full of their belongings, with great piles of children’s books, toys, games and knick-knacks that I have found it hard to sort through and dispose of.

Books are a real problem too; every member of the family collects books and this Christmas brought a few more; yet we have far too many to give them all shelf space and that means making hard decisions about which ones are no longer wanted.

The last and perhaps the biggest problem is all the fabric, dyes, paints and many other materials I have amassed to support my creative work. It is the source of my work and I never quite know what I will want to use next but I again I have more than enough for several creative lifetimes.

These hedge trees show where the wind comes from!

So how am I doing? Well it is still a work in progress but I now have sorted many sacks of rubbish and even bigger quantities for the recycling collection; the local charity shops have already received some new stock and are set to get more, while I have a growing list of items that are headed for eBay. I am not sure I will ever really change my habits and learn to shun possessions but at least I should have some space free for a while.

I must now try very hard to remember the Taoist message that we enter the world with nothing and that possessions are just baggage that ties us down.

Our hamlet in the snow

Fantastic Fungi

As a child I was always fascinated by mysterious old Chinese medicine shops with all their weird and wonderful bits of dried and shrivelled Nature. Most interesting of all were the different dried mushrooms that, depending on type, could be used for correcting health problems, or added to an unusual and healthy-giving dish in the kitchen. I still love the look of fungi today in both their living and dried forms. (Or more accurately, as my husband tells me, the fruiting bodies of fungi.)

Lingzhi – The mushroom of immortality!

The last time I visited Hong Kong I photographed some fungi in a health shop which stirred up even more childhood associations. These were the mushroom known as “Lingzhi” which featured in many of the books I read in my youth. This rare fungus (Ganoderma lucidum) has been used in Chinese medicine for 2,000 years and many accounts attributed it with life extending powers. In more recent times it has found a regular place in literature as a fabled elixir of life, and featured in many of the Martial Arts novels I read in my teens. Seeing them lying in a shop, piled in an old cardboard box, rather spoiled the myth!

Lingzhi (Ganoderma lucidum)

Lingzhi (Ganoderma lucidum) Legend of my youth

Another type of dried fungus

I also love fungi growing in nature, where they can suddenly appear like exotic aliens overnight. I have now tried to start photographing any new types I see, though our voracious Cornish slugs seem to attack and disfigure many before I get there.

Decorating Christmas Cakes For Gifts

This year I made and decorated small Xmas cakes to give as gifts. Rather than the marzipan and fruit decoration I used last year, I went back to using icing to make the flowers and leaves for this year.

Here are a few photographs showing how I did the decoration.

A finished cake

Levelling the top of a cake using marzipan

My first step was to level the uneven tops of my cakes using a little apricot jam and small pieces of marzipan.

Cake coated with marzipan

Next, a layer of marzipan was added over the whole cake.

Cake after icing

The marzipan was followed by a nice smooth coat of icing.

Basic flower shape cut out of icing

Using a suitable cutter I cut basic flower shapes from thinly rolled icing. To prevent sticking I make liberal use of cornflower.

Re-shaping flower

I added some 3-dimensional form with the aid of a toothpick.

Adding colour to the flower

I have both liquid and powder forms of cake decorator’s colours. Here I used a little of the powder type to colour the flowers.

Creating the final flower form using foil

The final form of the flowers was set by placing the soft icing shapes into a pre-shaped bed of kitchen foil. The flowers were then allowed to stiffen before adding them to the cake.

Making flat leaf shapes

Flat shapes such as leaves are much quicker and simpler to make.

Adding all the individual parts to the cake

When all the pieces are ready they are attached to the cake using drops of icing.

Another finished example!

With a little dusting of icing sugar to provide a “snow effect”, the cake is complete.

This may seem like a lot of work but I found that it did not take too long provided I stuck to variations on a simple theme and did not get sucked in to exploring design possibilities!

Technical note: I made my own gelatin icing for decorating these cakes. This is probably a little easier to form 3-D shapes with but regular fondant icing could also be used.

Merry Christmas

Hi everyone,

I would like to apologise for the lack of new posts here in the run up to Xmas. We will try to get back to normal in the New Year.

Merry Christmas from Cornwall.

Wishing everyone a safe, happy and prosperous 2013.

All the best

Wai-Yuk and Alex

A recently completed textile brooch