Ramsgate Harbour illuminated boats.

Ramsgate Royal Harbour has become one of the Christmas highlights in Thanet, with more of the boats illuminated for the festival this year.

Lots of people are visiting and taking photographs  of the over 40 boats taking part and the press has been down interested in this more unusual Christmas event.

This annual event is now in its third year and is organized by the Royal Temple Yacht Club and Ramsgate Marina Association and runs till January.

Boats taking part will be judged for the best dressed competition in a number of categories.

Seashell ecology and identification, study and beach combing.

Ruth and I spent a very interesting day on a seashell ecology and identification day. It was organised by the Wildwood Trust and lead by Anne Riddell, a great knowledgeable and enthusiastic tutor.

We started off in the education centre at Wildwood where Anne talked about seashells, showed us slides and let us handle different shells.

We learnt about the development of shells from primeval times, from fossil remains to present day. How they reproduce and feed. I didn't realize how many shells were predators, attacking, killing and eating other shells.

We learnt how to identify the main groups of shells, lots of small differences.

We looked at the sort of habitats where shells live around Britain and then particularly in Thanet.

Finally we had an identification quiz. matching shells to their drawings. Which we did surprisingly well.

The real fun bit was going on to Kingsgate Bay with Anne and collecting shells from the beach.
Here Anne was a goldmine of information, telling us and other beach walkers about the shells and objects we were picking up on the beach.

It would be great to have Anne on hand for my beachcombing walks. I did though learn a lot more than I did and it will be good to use that in future.

Mr Lion Exhibition at Turner Contemporary Gallery

Call of the Wild painting

I'm part of an arts group, Blank Canvas that meets at Turner Contemporary most weeks. We have been working on a project using an old card of Mr Lion that the lead artist Lucy Steggals found.
Lucy's website here.http://lucysteggals.co.uk/

This mysterious character has been explored through a variety of mediums including, photography, print, sound and stage and we have put together an exhibition which will open at Turner Contemporary on the 10th of February  till 23rd of March. Tuesday to Sundays

The opening event is on the 10th 4.30 till 6.30pm everyone welcome.  link to the exhibition on the gallery's site here  I am showing my painting, Call of the Wild.

I've been continuing to work on my Mr Lion sketchbook and would like to continue exploring the lions that were at Dreamland in Margate. I especially like the stories of lions being walked on Margate beach.

There is a great exhibition of self portraits on at Turner Contemporary too called self. More about that later.