Old Street London Underground station is a big round about that has high traffic flow from east to west and from north to south of the city. The tube station becomes a popular meeting spot, with a funky young crowd sighting the bars and clubs on the weekend. The east end of Old Street, from Hoxton Square to Shoreditch High Street and Liverpool Street, is home to countless bars, cafes, restaurants and clubs. The ambiance is young, edgy, funky, relaxed. There are often secret house parties and street parties happening, although with some tucked away pockets getting more posh and expensive, most of this area are still randomly covered with graffiti and spray paint in the streets. Some may find this east end suburb a little too hippie and grungy, whereas most youngsters embrace the edgy style and consider it as a rather fashionable culture.

The list of bars, pubs and clubs in Shoreditch is impressive. Lots of Londoners come to the east end to go out on Friday and Saturday night. All within five to ten minutes walking distance from each other, there is a huge array of different venues to choose from for different occasions. If you want to catch up with friends for drinks, Dragon Bar, Prague, Spread Eagle, Electricity Showroom are friendly bars with lots of people crowding around for drinks after work. StrongRoom, and lots of bars in Hoxton Square sometimes have live bands and outdoor seating area, perfect for summer evenings and smokers. Kick bar has an entertaining area downstairs with pool tables and football tables, good for socialising and a bit of laugh. If you would like to opt for something more classy or slightly posh, Great Eastern Dining Room, Hoxton Hotel, Hoxton Pony and Beach Blanket Babylon attract a fashionable or perhaps more grown up crowd.

Food may not be the strongest selling point here, but Kingsland Road is famous for its Vietnamese cuisine. Stretching about 200 meters long, this well known Vietnamese district features numerous restaurants serving authentic Vietnamese food. Open until midnight, these eateries are often packed with crowds for pre or post drinks.

Why not visit some of these places with your friends, partners or the gorgeous Old Street escorts who enjoy going out and having fun.

If you would like to visit Chingford why not book yourself a stunning Chingford escort to accompany you. Escorts in Chingford are beautiful ladies who live locally and are always happy to meet like-minded gentlemen. They will be able to accompany you to sight see, and to enjoy Chingford on a fuller scale. These professional and stunning girls will devote their time to you to enjoy the activities that take your fancy. Why not start the day exploring the various landmarks the town has to offer. The atmosphere of the area is calm and tranquil. You can relax your mind and soul strolling down the street with one of the beautiful escorts from Chingford. Sip on cafe latte and share some cakes during the day, escorts in Chingford can offer you the girlfriend experience without any strings attached. They are happy to spend the day or night with you whenever you want, wherever you want.

Megan was jetted to Italy for a promotional tour and her career as an Italian supermodel was launched. She recently told an Australian interviewer that she still cannot believe her meteoric rise to modeling fame.
At 5’10”, with lustrous dark hair and green eyes, Megan has the kind of curvy frame that still makes Italian hearts beat faster – but she also has the undeniable grace and slenderness of a top fashion model, with the height to carry her stunning proportions down the runways of the world in style.

Megan first entered the world of modeling in 1994, when she won an Australia-wide competition to find new faces. Five years later the Vodafone commercial made her a star in Italy.

As she later told the media, she arrived not knowing the language or the country, but her fame had arrived before her – “It was a lot to deal with,” she said.

Her meteoric rise to fame in Italy was matched by growing excitement about the stunning young model back home. Now Megan divides her time between Italy and Australia, enjoying the perks of fame, such as the chance to be a celebrity driver in the 2003 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

But while she continues to grace the catwalk in clothes by famous Italian designers, she has also shown the compassionate side of her nature by launching a project to save abandoned dogs in Italy. With the support of the Mayor of Milan, Megan has appeared on TV and in print to draw attention to the plight of dogs abandoned to starve or die of thirst. Previously she was involved with a campaign to reduce graffiti in Milan.
Megan’s kindness as well as her beauty has endeared her to a broad spectrum of the community, both in Australia and Italy. Her ease in front of crowds and her fluency in the Italian language have ensured her hosting roles such as the San Remo music festival, and parts in Italian movies.

Will the model become a movie star? Only time will tell. She has signed a three movie deal with the De Laurentis Company, and debuted in Vacanze di Natale, playing herself. She starred with Cindy Crawford in Bodyguards, and played the lead in Stregati Dalla Luna. In 2004 she signed to join the cast of the US movie Stealth, filmed in Sydney.
Whatever direction Megan decides to take in the future, there seems little doubt that her charm and versatility will again take her to the top.

Small but efficient, and budget-priced, printmaking presses are designed to reside in very small spaces. Home from the office and dinner over, you head for your studio and your very own creative press…or this is your life work and home is where your press is.

Today’s creative press artisan still takes advantage of the processes employed by masters such as Rembrandt, Durer, Matisse, Picasso, Dali and Whistler, but now, digital transfer has been added to the mix. Plates of linoleum, plastics, and Plexiglas are used as well as zinc, copper, brass and other metals. Fabrics sometimes replace paper.

“Intaglio” is the most common form of printmaking, and “Engraving” is the most common technique of Intaglio (as well as the oldest). Etching, Drypoint, Mezzotint, Aquatint and Stipple are all Intaglio techniques.

Other popular methods of printmaking are Bas-Relief (Relief) and Planography, also known as Lithography.

Bas-Relief generally uses wood and linoleum cuts but a new form, known as Collography, is growing in popularity. Varied materials are placed on a rigid surface, such as cardboard or wood, in a collage-like manner. The raised surfaces are then inked and printed.

Planography or Lithography (“litho” meaning “stone”) uses a level surface. The image is drawn on a flat stone or metal plate with a greasy water-repellant substance. When the plate or stone is moistened, the ink is absorbed by the greasy substance, only.

Owning your own printmaking press has many advantages: The printmaker is no longer confined to borrowing, renting or joining a facility just for the use of a press, your investment may have desirable tax consequences and when an inspiration nudges, your press is right there. Prices range from $60.00 to $3,600.00.

However, if you are a true beginner to calligraphy, just beginning to learn the strokes, not even sure if this is really something you´re interested in pursuing, how much sense does it make to invest in expensive pens, inks, and paper?  None at all.  This article looks at sensible and cheap tools that will allow you to practice the basic strokes and learn enough calligraphy to decide whether this is something you want to pursue before you invest in the “proper” equipment.  Be aware that these tools won´t allow you to create elegant invitations and placecards.  For that, you do need the right tools.  But for practicing your strokes, these work just as well.

First, you need paper.  Ideally, it should be lined.  You can create lined paper on your computer in either Publisher or Excel.  Just make sure that all the lines are even.  Don´t use ruled notebook filler; it´s too thin.

Paper with calligraphy lines—two dark lines to mark the bottom and top of each line, and a fainter one to mark the middle—is always useful.  But it isn´t necessary.  You can always use a ruler and a pencil and pencil in the middle line yourself.  Remember, we want the cheapest, most basic equipment possible.

Next, let´s look at pens.  Calligraphy pens can be expensive.  Calligraphy ink can be even more expensive.  But all you really need for practicing the basic strokes of calligraphy is a chisel-tipped pen or marker.  That´s it.  You need to be able to draw a thick or thin line with the same pen.  But you don´t need an expensive calligraphy pen to do that.

Chisel-tipped pens or markers come in all different colors, so if you want, you can buy a four-pack and play around with different colors.  But even that isn´t necessary.  A plain black works just fine.  Almost all major brands offer chisel-tipped pens for under $5.  (Many sell them for under $3.)

You also need a book that can show you the basic strokes of calligraphy.  However, at this point, the basic strokes are all you need.  Don´t spend extra money on a book that will show you twenty different alphabets if you can find one that will teach you just the strokes.

Finally, unless you can print calligraphy paper from your computer, you need a ruler for marking that elusive middle line.  You can pick up a good wooden ruler for under a dollar in most office supply stores, superstores, or school supply stores.

Getting started in calligraphy need not cost an arm and a leg.  As you advance, you will, no doubt, want to invest in pens and inks and papers.  For now, however, those things simply aren´t necessary.  Especially if you have children who think they want to learn calligraphy, buy the cheap practice tools first.  If your child wants to learn calligraphy badly enough to practice page after page of a single stroke for weeks on end, then you should probably go ahead and invest in the more expensive tools.  But use the cheap ones to see if he or she will stick with it.

At heart, calligraphy is nothing more than a collection of particular strokes.  In order to get good at calligraphy, you must write page after page of a single stroke, then page after page of another, and so on.  It is a tedious and time consuming process, and most people give up after a few dozen practice pages.  Be smart.  Start cheap.  If you hang in there, you can buy the fancy equipment.  Otherwise, you would only be throwing money away.

Years ago, when Tony entered the business, if you wanted a tattoo you went to a tattoo parlor and searched through traditional pictures to find an image that best represented you.  Now there is a greater variety in the types of tattoos people are seeking.  Instead of choosing an image off the wall, people are far more likely to search the web or art books and commission a tattoo artist to reproduce an image of their choice.  Tattoo artists are also being chosen based on the uniqueness of their designs.

“The trends in imagery people seek tend to ebb and flow.  A couple of years ago Polynesian tribal tattoos, geometric shapes in solid black, were huge.  Lately people seem to be seeking a more artistic look, like oil paintings on skin,” says Tony.  Better ink quality and more sophisicated machinery have also resulted in better quality tattoos over the years.  Artists can create finer lines, more detail, and better depth of shade, which means just about anything within reason can be reproduced on the body.

One of the things that Tony has noticed over the years is that people have become so video and computer screen oriented that they can’t easily grasp the concept of size and scale.  “Somebody will come into the shop with a download of an oil painting he wants reproduced on his arm.  I have to say, ‘Dude, that’s a 10 foot by 20 foot fresco – it’ll never fit on your bicep!”

The areas of the body people choose to tattoo have changed over time as well.  It used to be mostly arm work.  Now for women it seems tattoos on the feet or lower back are popular while men choose between the shoulder blades as well as on the arms.  According to Tony, feet and hand tattoos are a bad idea.  “Those areas are high maintenance areas.  The skin takes a lot of abuse and rubbing. It’s a difficult area to heal and the tattoo eventually wears away.  The skin is constantly trying to get rid of it and the image is basically sloughed off.”

Tony says people have also become savvier about where they are willing to get their tattoos.  They know what questions to ask when they come in – How are you sterilizing your equipment?  Do you use disposable parts?  They’re less likely to turn to scratchers, people who are tattooing out of their basements and garages.  People want a clean, sophisticated-looking, professional, establishment and there are way more of them to turn to than there were fifteen or twenty years ago.  “The last thing you want to do is get your tattoo at a tattoo party in someone’s living room, with the equipment boiling on the stove.  Unless you use autoclave sterilization you aren’t killing off everything, like hepatitis.  Chances are good you’re going to get a lousy tattoo out of it as well.  If somebody can’t get work in a reputable place, then most likely he can’t give a quality tattoo.  He may be an amazing artist on paper, but that doesn’t mean he can tattoo.”

How can you be sure to get a high quality tattoo?  Tony says stick to reputable places.  Ask around to see what kind of a reputation they have. Before you choose an artist, look at the tattoos he’s done – in person.  Look for fine lines with smooth stops and starts.  Notice how the tiny details look.  Are they blurred or sharp?  Be realistic about what you want the artist to accomplish.  Work with him to design an image.  Don’t expect him to copy a highly pixilated image off the web.  In this industry, you get what you pay for.  Don’t choose the cheapest option for something you will have to live with for the rest of your life.”

Once you’ve chosen the artist and gotten the high quality tattoo, Tony says the most important thing you can do to make sure it remains high quality is to take care of it.  “People don’t think about tattoos as something you need to take care of, but it’s your skin.  You have to take care of your skin!  Follow the directions on the after-care sheet.  After it’s healed you still have to maintain it.  If you spend a lot of time in the sun, you have to put sun screen on your tattoos or the sun fades them.  If you don’t moisturize your skin, your tattoo won’t look its best.  If you’re spending a lot of money to put something on your body forever, make the effort to care for it!”

Another area of the tattoo industry that has changed and improved is the removal of tattoos.  Tony says people ask him all the time about removal.  He tells them, “it’s all done by laser now, but it still hurts a lot and it still costs a lot too.  If you are serious about removal, you need to talk to a plastic surgeon.”  According to Tony, a much easier solution to a bad tattoo is to have it covered up with a better one.  The other option is to cover it up with a high quality make-up made specifically for that purpose, like Dermablend.

A relatively new issue in the tattoo industry is copyright.  In the past decade, tattoo artists have attempted to protect their designs by paying a small fee for it to be copyrighted.  Tony says it’s a complete waste of time because you would drive yourself crazy trying to control it.  “All you can really do is control where you put your designs.  If you put up a website, make sure you pay to block downloads.  We don’t allow cameras or even camera phones in our shop.  We watch our books because people will try to steal the designs right out of them.  You can never control it completely, partly because of the nature of the art.  Every tattoo is different because the body is part of the artwork, and every body is different.”

There will always be the traditional tattoo client cut in the biker image that one envisions, and there will always be people seeking the traditional tattoos of skulls, flames, hearts, and roses.  There will also always be the traditional back-alley tattoo parlor, but the industry no longer ends there.  So what about the future of the tattoo industry?  Tattooing the human body has been popular since the earliest civilizations; it’s not going anywhere soon, and these days, the sky’s the limit!

History and Styles

Moroccan architecture is an eclectic, even cosmopolitan cultural blend that reflects its long and rich history. Morocco’s indigenous people are the Berbers, who farmed the land from at least 2000 BC. Subsequent rulers and invaders included Arabians, the Spanish, the Portuguese and, in recent, colonial times, French occupiers. (Morocco was declared a French protectorate in 1912, the same year as Matisse’s visit.) In the Moroccan cities, the medina, or old city, sits alongside the boulevards of the adjacent French-style towns, built by the colonisers as part of development efforts in the earlier twentieth century.

The oldest architecture in Morocco includes ancient fortified citadels (kasbahs) and villages (ksars), mostly located in and around the Atlas Mountains. These are of a style dubbed ‘Southern Kasbah’. Made of sun-dried brick, these towering forts, many later turned into palaces, boast simple lines. Despite their massiveness, they still seem to blend seamlessly with their environments. Though many are now ruined, some have found new life as film sets for Hollywood movies. The romance of the kasbah was immortalised in the famous 1942 film set in Morocco’s largest city: Casablanca.

Moroccan Islamic architecture, incorporating elements of African traditional buildings and materials, arose after Islam spread across North Africa in the later 7th century AD. The dominant Moroccan architectural style, Hispano-Moorish, dates to around the eleventh century AD, when the indigenous Berber peoples, who had adopted Islam after the Arab conquest, came to power. Berber dynasties would rule Morocco and large parts of Spain for the next four centuries.  The Hispano-Moorish architectural style originated in Spain (in Andalusia), and was taken across the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco at the behest of the ruling Berber Almoravid dynasty. The Almoravids sent Spanish artisans to Morocco, where they introduced the graceful arches and lofty domes that, along with white walls and green stucco roofs, have become hallmarks of the Hispano-Moorish style.

From the 11th to 15th centuries, Moroccan art and architecture enjoyed a golden age, flourishing under successive Berber dynasties. Initially, buildings tended to sport simple, plain exteriors but were lavishly decorated inside with geometric designs, floral patterns and the like. By the fifteenth century, the style had evolved to include ornately embellished exteriors, on mosques, medersas (religious schools) and other public architecture. That these elaborate patterns were perfected as a high art form owes something to Islam’s prohibition of figural imagery, especially humans and animals, in religious art. (Such figures were not, however, forbidden in the home, as is often thought. Figurative images adorned items such as carpets, for example).  Morocco’s splendid mosques with their soaring minarets from where the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer, the medina’s ancient streets, the ornamented palaces, and the warrens of the kasbahs still enchant visitors. It is, however, the design and style of the traditional Moroccan house, or riad, that has especially captured the twenty-first century imagination.

Traditional Living: the Restoration of the Riads

Tucked into the spaces between older buildings in Morocco’s historic ancient cities, are scores of traditional houses, both large and small, that as recently as ten years ago were decaying and neglected, used for storage and as animal pens. Renovation of these once gracious homes has proceeded apace and they are now highly sought-after properties.

The basic riad floor plan is plain and geometrically precise, consisting of rooms surrounding a central open-air courtyard. If the design is reminiscent of Roman villas, that is because the origins of the riad floor plan are thought to date to Roman times. Roman remains at Volubilis , a Roman administrative centre in Morocco, are often cited as the riad’s architectural antecedent, later adapted for African conditions. The riad layout provides shade and shelter from the African heat and dust, the central courtyard a peaceful oasis, lush with plants and cooled by fountains and pools. The name ‘riad’ derives from the Arabic word for a garden.

With the rise of Islam, the riad design came in useful in another way, providing private family spaces, insulated from the bustle and commerce of the city beyond. The garden provides a contemplative, unspoilt and almost sacred space. The design, with its rows of arches around a rectangular garden, recalls that historically unrelated place, the convent cloister, where the devout could pursue their devotions without the distractions of the world outside.

Yet it is also a social space, the true heart of the home. All rooms in the traditional riad open onto this atrium, and it is where the visitor passing through the heavy, carved wooden door from the street would find himself on admittance. As with the Almoravid architecture of nearly a millennium ago, the plain face that a building presents to the public world gives way to an interior space that is intricately and lovingly decorated. Exterior windows in the riad are small, high or absent, minimising intrusions from the street. It is like passing from a wilderness outside to an inner sanctum that is a showcase for civilised taste, culture and learning. In the heyday of the Moroccan empire, that is precisely what the Islamic cities were famous for. In the earlier 2nd millennium AD Islamic cities across Africa (such as the legendary Timbuktu) were renowned centres of knowledge: in science, astronomy, mathematics, engineering and medicine. The riad seems to be a microcosm of the world in which it evolved.

The appeal of the riad’s inward-directed design for people today, and for contemporary lifestyles and tastes, is clear. Security with style, in a space that combines seclusion with sociability is a winning combination. The courtyard garden organically blurs the boundaries between indoors and outdoors. It is the ideal contemporary garden, a place designed for people as much as it is a place of nature.

The architectural details of the typical riad interior clearly reveal the powerful Islamic influence at work in the design. The elegant archways that flank the atrium echo the mihrab, the prayer alcove in a mosque’s qibla wall (a wall oriented towards Mecca). The arches’ form exemplifies the fusion of opposites in which Islamic architecture excels: straight lines softened by the sinuous curve; or solid, straight mosque walls, topped by domes that seem to rest above as lightly as a hat.

Islamic Art and Interior Design

The intricate decorative work that characterises Islamic art, from Africa across Europe to Asia, combines flowing lines with precision draughtsmanship and craftsmanship. Friezes in Arabic calligraphy that celebrate verses from the Qu’ran, or flower patterns and other motifs, form rich designs that offset the more rigid geometry of the floor plan. Every surface of the built environment invited decoration of some kind. One of the marvels of the Hispano-Moorish style is that attention to detail was applied with equal dedication and skilful effect to both small domestic dwellings and large town buildings.

Precision design and highly developed craftsmanship characterise many Moroccan arts and crafts, amongst them ceramic tiles made to adorn every surface: floors, walls, and ceilings, indoors and outdoors. Here again is mathematical skill, used to generate intricate and meticulously symmetrical geometric patterns. The patterns appear also in wood carving, with extraordinary workmanship displayed in the ornamentation of architectural wonders like Marrakech’s Bahia Palace. In the ceramic tiles, known as zellige, we can glimpse some of the glorious colour that would have struck Matisse a century ago and that now strikes a chord with contemporary designers.

Colour, glowing bright or warm and earthy, is a crucial dimension of the charm of Moroccan style. It is not something added on to Moroccan architecture, but integral to it. Interior walls are traditionally painted using natural earth pigments. Iron, cobalt and other minerals endow the paints with deep and subtle colour: red, orange, yellow and blue. Rugs in complementary bright, yet earthy, colours add richness and texture to floors. Warm indigenous woods, like cedar wood, frame the doors and alcoves. Forget the dull, rectangular doors that we’re accustomed to: Moroccan doors are finely sculpted or ornamented with ornate metalwork forged by master craftsmen. Great care and fine detailing was often lavished on the front door, which fitted snugly into a horseshoe-shaped arch.  These doors too might feature the traditional repeating patterns that adorn the mosques, schools and domestic interiors. Moroccan handmade lamps, in stained glass or in metal and leather, are renowned world-wide amongst designers and those in the know about cutting edge trends in interior décor and international style trends.

The visual effect is extraordinarily modern: a blend of cheerful and subtle tones, cosmopolitan style with an ethnic flavour, and all pervaded by an organic and eco-friendly ambience. It is little wonder that as well as designers, Morocco’s buildings have attracted architects. Especially in Marrakech and Essaouira, riads have been snapped up, often by foreigners. They are rescued from ruin, renovated and relaunched, catering for the tourists who are all-important to Morocco’s economy. Some riads have become restaurants; many offer accommodation, from humble bed and breakfast establishments to upmarket hotels. Some restorations have featured in prestigious architectural journals.

Neo-Moroccan Architecture

The revival of the riads is one way in which Morocco’s traditions persist. Marrakech in particular has a reputation as something of a landmark on the contemporary international style and design map and architects are creating new buildings by reinterpreting traditional architecture. The contemporary style known as Neo-Moroccan synthesises Morocco’s two principal architectural traditions: the ancient Southern Kasbah style and the Islamic Hispano-Moorish. From the former, architects take spaciousness, simplicity and concord between building and environment. From the latter, they borrow colour, complexity and luxury.

Contemporary architecture in Morocco includes the second largest mosque in the world, in the city of Casablanca, on the Mediterranean Sea. For visitors to Morocco, this is one of the few Moroccan mosques that allows non-Muslims access. Designed by the French architect Michel Pinseau, the Hassan II Mosque was constructed between 1986 and 1993. It boasts the worlds’ tallest minaret (210 metres). Built on a promontory, half the building juts out over the water, which is visible through a glass floor. It too can be called ‘Neo-Moroccan, since it draws on both kasbah architecture and Hispano-Moorish style. In such buildings, an architectural thread that dates back more than a millennium lives on.