new words, and hitting pause

Married life is just the same lovely life as it was before the wedding, but with a new ring and new words like husband, and wife. Our wedding was sweet, simple, and quick— were it not for the photos I could swear it was all just a dream. I don't know how I got so lucky.



I left you in Urfa last, where I still have a lot of photos to share and dare I say, some sketches as well. I also have a few photos from Portugal, and these I took in Istanbul yesterday. When you put a pause on certain things like blogging, life speeds away and it gets hard to keep a sense of coherence. I still have not shared much of last summer in Nepal (which was full of amazing things), but alas, time has slipped right by me. This I should do soon, as I will be back beneath the Stupa's gaze before I know it.



So let's get back to Urfa after this post.

sketching by the galata bridge

While I huddle beneath my yak wool blanket and sip masala chai in an attempt to cure the nasty cough I've acquired, I thought I'd show you the last sketch I drew. Ten days ago, when I felt peachy keen, the sun was making a thrilling appearance. In celebration, I took a stroll down to the Galata Bridge for a fish sandwich and a little drawing. The light shifted between blue and a cool yellow, giving the Golden Horn a metallic sheen. Gulls competed for scraps of food, while silver headed cormorants slipped silently into water in search of fish.



As soon as I put down my pencil, the inevitable happened. A huge splat of green and white landed on my left arm— thankfully nowhere near my sketchbook or çay. I'm not sure why people consider it lucky to be mistaken for an avian feces receptacle, but hey. It's better than getting upset over the nastiness on your sleeve, isn't it? 

lovely day

A çay on the ferry to Asia.

A feast of cherry kebap, aubergine stew, lamb intestines stuffed with barley and a mysterious kebap with pomegranate sauce at Çiya.

Fishermen on the Galata bridge catch something unexpected.

drawing the world

I was delighted to receive an email from fellow Urban Sketcher PeF, who was flying into Istanbul from Lisbon with three of his talented sketcherfriends: Pedro, Cláudia and Cate. The five of us spent a drizzly, warm evening behind the Aya Sofya, swapping sketchbooks over çay and chatting about art, the cities we love and just about anything that came to mind. We walked down to Eminönü to feast on fish sandwiches in the dark, and decided to see how much sketching we could accomplish on the Galata Bridge between rain bursts.



I managed to scrawl out this very messy sketch of a couple of the bridge's ever-present fishermen before the rain started to fall. We packed up up our books and pens and darted off to the funicular towards Tünel, in search of a café to carry on with our conversations and drawing.

I'm so grateful to Urban Sketchers for connecting me with such wonderful people— people full of life and warmth, people who I have this sketching addiction in common with. In a few weeks time, two Urban Sketchers who became dear friends of mine, Lapin and Javier, are coming to visit. I can't wait to go drawing with them— I deeply admire their skill, talent and commitment to their art. You may remember Lapin from my Barcelona adventure, whose generosity gave me a sofa to sleep on, delicious food in my belly (whipped up by his charming wife Lapinette), and six days of wonderful conversation and quiet sketching. I met Javier last March, when he came to Istanbul with 50 Spanish designers and artists to sketch and tour the city. Javier is one of those people with whom you find hours just melting away in conversation and laughter— a kind soul with mad talent.

If you haven't yet heard of Urban Sketchers, I highly suggest you visit our site when you've got a few hours you want to fill with stunning and inspiring artwork. We're a non-profit organisation of location sketchers with a mission to "show the world, one drawing at a time." Visit us at www.urbansketchers.org.

crossing the golden horn

Stretched lazily across the Golden Horn in its rusting cyan splendour, is the Galata Bridge.
The smell of fish and sea, the deep-throated laugh of a fisherman.

crossing bridges

Lately the crossing of bridges seems to have become a recurring theme in my life. In the past five weeks, I've walked across the Bosphorus Bridge, crossed Budapest's green Szabadság híd three times, Széchenyi lánchíd once, the Margit Bridge once, Árpád híd once, and the Galata bridge twice. There's something wonderful about walking over water, passing from one land to the other.

I love bridges, I always have. I was deeply in love with San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, and had crossed it too many times to count. I was even once proposed to in the middle of its orange span. Here's a fact that few people are aware of— the Golden Gate, which is the opening of San Francisco's Bay to the Pacific, was named after Istanbul's Golden Horn. Yesterday, I spent a few hours on both sides of the Golden Horn, both above the Galata Bridge and beneath it. There are a number of fish restaurants under the bridge, most cater to tourists and are priced so, but for a cup of tea, some börek and a sketch, you can easily spend ten lira for a beautiful hour.


I think I'm going to do a life-sized pencil drawing of the man selling simit— I'm really happy with how the photograph turned out and would love to draw his face.