When I dropped the kids to school this morning I was planning on going home to clean my messy house (after being away for the weekend). At the last minute I steered the car past my road and headed into the National Gallery instead to see the Turner exhibition as it is finishing up this week. I saw this exhibition in 1989 when I was a student. The only thing is when I arrived to see it that day - the exhibition had just closed the day before. I must have looked disappointed because the security guard told me to follow him and he took me to the basement of the gallery and showed me into a dark curtained off room where the entire exhibition was hanging on one wall - no security bells, no frames nothing - just the paintings in their glory. I've always been facinated by the colours he used and now I know why - just like me he has a thing for the colour blue - it's in all of his paintings somewhere. Today I discovered that he liked to paint on blue paper to emphasise the 'blueness' . The exhibition is amazing - well worth the trip but it finishes on Wednesday - at least til next January...My favourites are those painted in Venice especially the Doge's palace. Here's a link to the exhibition...

http://website.lineone.net/~carpenter9/artist/turner-ireland.htm