london

view from my bedroom window at  4.36pm.

looks rather forbidding, these two silhouettes but actually in real life they are rather pretty with the blue sky with that flush of pink clouds in the distance reflecting the setting sun. pictures do give a false mood but maybe it depands on the veiwers mindset. someone who is troubled and whose life is not going well might interpret it as a dark picture. whilst i view it rather as a nice dramatic scene setting off the red flush in the sky.

Added. 21.1.12saturday.
I have been cycling about, and noticed how nice it is to be able to see so much of the sky as i move about london. there are parks everywhere in london, and they provide open up the vista  giving us a grand view of the sky without buildings obscuring it. I think happiness is being able to see the sky. one feels a sense of freedom when one can see so much of the sky.

i was in new york in the past, and now i think of it, u cannot see much sky because of the skyscrapers that they have. it can be quite claustrophobic. but i made sure i stayed in greenwich village, which still has lowlying buildings and so did not feel so hemmed in.

when people talk about views, they usually mean the river views or country views, but dont forget  just to have sky views is good enough.
and so much of london have lowlying buildings that practically any flat will have lots of sky views.
and in uk we get such interesting skies, with clouds making beautiful play with sun and glimpses of blue sky, or different types of clouds and rain clouds injecting a sombre mood.
I am beginning to appreciate the sky.

there is a hockney exhibition now of his woodlands paintings. he makes them more colourful and cheerful than they really are. in real life, the colours are less vivid, and more dark green, dark brown, rather than red and yellow and bright green and bright blue as he paints them. he makes the woods appear almost californian. and interesting that there is no play of streaming sunlight forming shafts of light beaming in between the trees. that is the most delightful thing about the english woods and yet there is no play of light and shadow in his paintings.
here are two pics i took quite a few years ago to illustrate the play of light and shade in english woods.

here is a link to an article about hockney where there are links to see some of his paintings.