David Hockney and a nice cup of tea

This week has been great!  I went to the David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy.  My mum came to visit and we went off on the train together.  We arrived in time for our 11am entry and then crowded in with the hoards of people.  I really enjoyed the show.  I had watched Andrew Marr's programme a couple of weeks before and was really looking forward to it.  From the series of trees in all seasons as you go in, to the grand finale of The Arrival of Spring 2011 (twenty-eleven) there was a lot to see, with older and new paintings in the show.  My favourite 3 pictures were Late November Tunnel 2006, Woldgate Woods 21,23,29 November 2006 and Woldgate Woods 7 and 8 November 2006. They were all quite similar in colour tones (warm autumnal) which appealed to me.  But I thought the exhibition as a whole was quite compelling.  It was really interesting seeing the iPad sketches blown up and printed onto huges sheets of paper, and as a medium for drawing, it certainly piqued my interest.  Royal Academy link

You can see The Arrival of Spring (it has been a popular image to advertise the exhibition), but I did find a picture of Late November tunnel on the Daily Telegraph website (image 5):
David Hockney in Telegraph

It had a range of his work, from the early, post-student days, through to the most recent paintings in Woldgate Woods. The canvases of the Grand Canyon were particularly striking and vividly coloured, but there were also a series of watercolours that were beautiful in their own right.  You got a real sense of the accomplishment of the artist with a huge selection of works, from bold and colourful works, to immensely detailed but subtle.

I had a great day, and found it very enjoyable.  My mum noted that "He does like to dab, doesn't he?", but she is a huge Hockney fan and then proceeded to grab herself the accompanying tome and lug that home.

But before home, we stopped off at Fortnum and Mason and had a sneaky look around.  Inhaling all that opulence and splendour made us a little bit thirsty so we had a cup of tea and some apple strudel.  What a luxury...

And a lovely cup and saucer to drink out of. 

We had a final look around all the lovely kitchen wares (we were eyeing up the egg cosies, as neither of us were brave enough to tackle the Mollie Makes ones just yet, and then we set off for home.  I was a bit tired that evening....Ahhh.