Wednesday 28 November 2012

A new focus for me & this blog

I have realised, what I love most is drawing on location. I am an obsessive observer and recorder, especially of things that would usually be considered too mundane. This type of drawing even has a term (which I have only recently discovered) "reportage".
 
I love drawing bits of my day, the everyday: the events, the glimpses, the eavesdropped conversations, the people on buses, the neighbourhood, the trees and the street corners.



So that is what I am going to focus on for the next month. Less words. More drawing. More celebration of the everyday. Some days a five minute drawing and some days a much longer study. Would like to say that is what I am going to do for the next year, but feel too tentative to commit to that right now.

Lets see how December goes!


Friday 16 November 2012

Trip to The Tate Britain

Sunday train to London.



Went to London to meet up with my Mum and brother and we ended up going to Tate Britain. Have never been before and was amazed at the scale of this building.

We saw the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition, which was much larger than I expected. Had a huge amount of work on show (drawings, prints and textiles, as well as paintings) and I got to see loads of paintings that I had only seen in books before. Ophelia by Millais had quite a crowd admiring it. In fact, the whole exhibition was extremely busy considering it was such a sunny Sunday.

Then we had a stroll along the Thames in the last of the sunshine. I do love London! I love its history, scale, grandeur and the amazing mix of people. As I walked back to Victoria Station, I passed Westminster Abbey. It was Remembrance Sunday, so there was this most amazing display of thousands of tiny, unassuming crosses outside the Abbey. All the crosses were named with an individual's details and some had photos attached. Made you realised how many people had died fighting and was a very poignant display. Were still lots of veterans about, all wearing their medals.

 
Am going to London again next weekend, so am going to try to squeeze in more drawing time than just the journey!

Monday 12 November 2012

November sketchcrawl, Brighton

A small group of us met at the new Cafe Coho on Queens Road, Brighton (very convenient for the train station!).

I drew the newsagent opposite. Is typical of a newsagents surrounding a station, selling everything from tourist postcards to bottles of wine.

Inspired me to draw some more of the shops along here. Lots of them are rather scruffy and typical of a transit area. But as there are plans afoot to redevelop this part of town, should capture before it all become too gentrified!