Back on the Trail

by theholmesteader, posted in Uncategorized

This week took me back into town to show off our wonderful city to Clara, a German girl I met on my travels in New Zealand. This was her first visit to Glasgow and after showing her around the many wonderful sights on offer she leaves with a great impression of our city.

On our first day, we headed West to Byres Road, our lunch in Oran Mor, with a visit to the Auditorium upstairs, with the stunning ceiling mural by Alasdair Grey, blew her away, followed by a visit to the Botanical gardens and a trip around Glasgow University, she thought the cloisters were something out of Hogwarts. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum adding to her amazement of what Glasgow has to offer.

Her our second day we went East starting with a City Chambers tour followed by visits to Provands Lordship, St Mungo Museum and the Cathedral led us to lunch at Drygate, we intended heading to the Peoples Palace but as the Winter Garden is closed and they are closing off sections of the Green in readiness for Transmit Festival, we decided to visit the Riverside Museum, and the Tall Ship was another very impressive visit.

In total over the 2 days, we covered all of the major tourist attractions of the city, plus many not on the normal tourist routes, had some good food, seen some great street art and had a chance to catch up and reminisce on our past travels, we had a great couple of days.

One of the things that delighted Clara was the Oor Wullie Big Bucket Trail, she loved all the sculptures dotted around the city, and she very quickly started photographing them, amongst her favourites were the Ziggy Stardust one on Bain Street, the Butterfly one in Kelvingrove Park, and the Heathery Braes one at Glasgow University.

Oor Ziggy by The Notorious Gasolines Co om Bain Street
O’er The Heathery Brae by Erin Michele O’Shaunhnessy
Butterfly Tickles by Laura Henderson in Kelvingrove Park

I was also quite happy about that as it gave me a chance to update my list of bagged Wullies, which can be seen here.

A Quiet Time in the Sunshine

by theholmesteader, posted in Glasgow, Street Art

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been a wee bit quiet online lately, following the March for Men we completed on fathers day and my Fathers Day lunch at Drygate, I decided I had to spend some time in my much-neglected garden. The weather was in my favour and I managed to get quite a bit done before it became too hot to work in the sunshine.

I also had a brilliant day volunteering at the Glasgow Mela in Kelvingrove Park, this was a fabulous event, attended by over 40,000 people, luckily the weather was great, there was loads of great music and dance, plenty of good Indian Street food and I met a great and interesting bunch of people.

During this time I came across Oor Wullie’s Big Bucket Trail, which sees sculptures of Wullie, the iconic wee Scottish laddie sitting on his upturned bucket, dotted around the city begging out to be photographed, there are 58 of them in Glasgow and the West, from a total of 200 around Scotland.  Each of the sculptures has been designed by leading Scottish artists, and to date, I have managed to capture around 25 of them, they can be seen on a new page here, I’ll add more as I find them.

On the March

by theholmesteader, posted in Glasgow

Sunday saw the Jim Jimmies out on the hoof again, this time on the Prostate Cancer UK March for Men in Pollok Park Glasgow.  We were joined by Jim’s friend Eileen and some of his family, who we lost on the way.  Graeme, Briony and Joffrey were also there with Joffrey looking the part in his Tee Shirt.  A Fathers day lunch and a few beers in Drygate finished off a lovely day.

I have now finished adding the photographs of street art in the New York section of our trip, they can be seen here.

Vegas Visions

by theholmesteader, posted in International, Street Art, Travel

Just before arriving in Vegas, Graeme sent me a link to the Greene Street Kitchen, a newly opened restaurant and bar in the Palms Casino Resort, with an original Banksy.

When Jim & I got there we pleasantly surprised to see it and works by other well-known artists, including one of my favourites, Vhils.  We didn’t have much time to go spotting other works but did manage to photograph some, the photographs can be seen here.

Seen in San Francisco

by theholmesteader, posted in International, Street Art, Travel

Followers of this page know that I visited San Francisco during my recent trip to the USA with my mate Jim.  Whilst there, I was on the lookout for some good street art and I wasn’t disappointed, I thought myself lucky to find two original Banksy’s, but I wasn’t so lucky with the weather on the day I visited the Mission District where the majority of the art was found.

Most of the photographs can be seen on the following San Francisco page, I have split the city into three distinct areas, the City Centre, Haight Ashbury and The Mission and each can be seen separately.  There was so much art to be seen that I’m sure I missed plenty and I would love to go back to capture more, this time in better weather though,

Our American Adventures

by theholmesteader, posted in International, Travel

Many of you may know that my mate Jim and I have just returned from a trip to America, we had a great time despite having some bad weather while we were there, we visited San Francisco, Las Vegas, The Grand Canyon, and finally, New York and had a fabulous time.

You can read all about our great trip in the Jim Jimmies on Tour in the USA page.

I’ll post the street art photographs taken, in each location, during the trip later.

Yardworks Weekend 2019

by theholmesteader, posted in Glasgow, Street Art

I had a great weekend at Yardworks, the weather for a change was brilliant.  The crowds turned out and the artists working put on a tremendous display.  In addition to the local favourites, many national and international artists created some tremendous work.

There was something for all the family in a carnival atmosphere, skateboarding and art experience for the kids and plenty of street food and bars for the adults, definitely something to add to the diary for next year.

Some of the photographs I took over the weekend can be seen here.

 

Jim Jimmies Revisited

by theholmesteader, posted in Glasgow, Street Art

I had a ‘cracking’ day in town yesterday with my mate Jim.  We were pleased that our efforts at the Kilt walk raised over £900 for Cancer Research UK, not bad for a couple of old guys out for a Sunday Stroll.  We also were able to go over our plans for our coming trip to San Francisco, Vega and New York, deciding what we are going to do with our time there.  After a nice lunch in the Shilling Brewing Co. we headed over to Paisley Road Toll for a beer in the Old Toll Bar and to see how Rogue-One’s latest work there has progressed since my last visit.  Jim hadn’t seen them before and he was very impressed, especially by the one of Mark McManus.

Little doors in Glasgow

by theholmesteader, posted in Glasgow

Being a wee bit bored today, I decided a walk in the park would brighten me up a little, so off I headed to Pollok Park.  As usual, I had a camera with me and was playing about with photographs of the waterfalls, etc, when I stumbled on a lot of little doors, it turned out to be a Fairy Village, it certainly was a nice way to brighten up a dull part of the park, and it generated a lot of interest for the visiting families with young children.