Brancusi's is an offshoot of Partisan, one of our favourite cafes in York. As we hadn't booked a table, dropping in on the off-chance, we were redirected to the new cafe at 104 Micklegate. The menu is very similar to Partisan and the venue is familiar to us as it used to be the Blake Head Bookshop and Vegetarian Restaurant. Most of the dining room is in the long extension behind the Micklegate shop. Our table at the end of the dining room provided a good view of a lovely dresser, ideal for a sketch in my A6, pocket-size Moleskine sketchbook.

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The short stretch of Blossom Street between Micklegate Bar and the corner of Queen Street, seen from the bus stop outside the Bar Convent. The buildings, built c1863, house several businesses, including the Blossom Street Art Gallery at number 2, by the Bar. Plaskitt the home furnishers at numbers 4-6, Del Rio's Italian restaurant in the basement of number 10 and a small Italian cafe on the corner of Queen Street and 10 Blossom Street. Drawn in an A5 Moleskine sketchbook.

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The front entrance of the Grand Opera House, as seen from the first floor of Prezzo Restaurant on the other side of the road. We had a meal here before seeing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat recently. The theatre building was constructed as a corn exchange which opened in 1868. Clifford Chambers was a suite of purpose built offices in the same building, over shops on the newly created Clifford Street. The theatre was opened in 1902 after the form exchange had closed down due to a depression in farming. There are side entrances on King Street and Cumberland Street, which were created at the same time as Clifford Street to replace the slum buildings on the Water Lanes.

Drawn in a Moleskine A5 size sketchbook with a Pentel 0.5mm pencil, after a few revisions, including the addition of the doorway to the Chambers.

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The front entrance of the Grand Opera House, as seen from the first floor of Prezzo Restaurant on the other side of the road. We had a meal here before seeing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat recently. The theatre building was constructed as a corn exchange which opened in 1868. Clifford Chambers was a suite of purpose built offices in the same building, over shops on the newly created Clifford Street. The theatre was opened in 1902 after the form exchange had closed down due to a depression in farming. Drawn in a Moleskine A5 size sketchbook with a Pentel 0.5mm pencil. I may have to correct a few errors on the drawing which have become more apparent in the photograph.

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A pen sketch, with a Staedtler Pigmentliner 0.05 pen in a Moleskine sketchbook. The description is based on the official Museum Gardens website.

The observatory was built in 1832-33 and is the oldest working observatory in Yorkshire. Its 4 inch refractor telescope was built by York man Thomas Cooke in 1850, who went on to make the then-largest telescope in the world. It was installed in 1981 when the observatory was restored. The Observatory also houses an 1811 clock which tells the time based on observations of the positions of stars. It was once the clock by which all others in York were set and is still always four minutes, 20 seconds, behind Greenwich Mean Time. In the mid 19th century it would cost sixpence to check a timepiece against the Observatory Clock.

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