Life drawing

Friday's life drawing. I much prefer more natural poses so my heart wasn't really in this. I have a virus this week and a migraine this weekend so I'll keep my posts short until I'm feeling more positive! It was Mark's birthday yesterday and as he has had a virus for the last three weeks with no sign of it getting any better, we've decided, like the Queen, that he should have an official birthday this year - hopefully next weekend if we're all feeling better!

B pencil on A3 cartridge paper

Climbers

Our wisteria is almost fully in bloom now and the smell is intoxicating as you open the front door. A couple of times I noticed some huge black bees flying around but I realised they weren't bees at all they were the same bright metallic green beetles that I was watching last autumn. Two of them were walking around the patio for weeks and now that I've seen them fly, I know that the poor things were busy dying! They've taken to our wisteria and it's covered in them!

Paul asked me a few years ago, 'how come you hate cockroaches and not beetles?' We were in the garden in Kuwait looking at a black beetle that had a round body and long legs making it look as if it was on stilts. I said cockroaches 'skitter' and 'lurk' whereas there is something comical about beetles - and right on cue, for no reason at all, the beetle fell on it's back, legs in the air and couldn't get up!




















We've bought quite a lot of climbing plants this year. Two more climbers came home with us this weekend - a pink/purple clematis called Dr Ruppel and a yellow Rhyncospermum asiaticum which neither of us had seen before. Just as we were going to the checkout I literally gasped when I saw this bougianvillea, the reds and pinks are so intense. I looked at Mark, he looked at me and now it has pride of place on my balcony! So I'm a very happy bunny with my lemon tree that reminds me of the Med and my 'boogie' that reminds me of the garden in Dubai.

The back garden hasn't had much done to it this spring as we are extending the patio around the pool and waiting for work to begin. We've now heard that this will begin tomorrow so with luck there will be a slightly better view from the balcony soon! Can't say I'm looking forward to seeing builders in the garden though.

Life drawing

It's fortunate the life class is as long as it is because for most of it this drawing looked like a disaster! I drew her head first and I'm happy with how her face turned out and the fact that it looks like a face when it's little more than a line with tiny variations. However, it is a bit too small for her body even though she is a very tall model! It seemed to take ages to get the shading on her body to look like muscles and bones rather than grubby smudges of graphite.

I'm improving in another area though - drawing in public. I have my sketchbook on me all the time and have used it a few times on the tram. I've got a favourite seat where I am less likely to be noticed and I'm getting quite good at hiding the sketchbook! I have realised though that nerves make me draw very fast and very sketchy and I have got to work on relaxing and improving the lines. The one big problem with drawing on the trams though is that I keep picking people who suddenly get up and leave! I picked a man this morning who looked engrossed in a Sudoku puzzle and had a very big belly (great for drawing). I started on his lapel but he can't have been that engrossed because a few seconds later, the tram stopped, he barely looked up and was out of the doors in a shot! I can see the marks in this sketchbook are going to be difficult to decipher if that keeps happening!

HB and B pencil.

Spring has sprung!

At least, I think it's spring but you'd be forgiven for thinking it's summer, the sun is so hot! The last two weeks have seen the trees suddenly turn green and most of the flowers in the garden burst into flower. The Passion Flower opened today. Who designed that one? It's amazing!














The second clematis to flower, a Montana.




















The wisteria Alba, outside the front door.




















Another shot of the clematis (Multi Blue) with two more flowers. Next to it is a red one I'm looking forward to seeing. I've decided I love deep reds most of all in the garden! The hope is that they will grow up to the branches of the wisteria so we have flowers all through spring and summer.















On the way home today, I gave in to a small lemon tree that I've had my eye on. I thought it would be the perfect plant for the balcony, outside my room, as it's very hot and sunny there. Hopefully the lemons will grow a lot bigger and juicier than this!
















In the balcony 'trough' are a few tiny conifers and two little variagated holly bushes with some Campanulas in between.














Also in the trough are two Forest Flames. I drew this one a few weeks ago and these red leaves have grown since then. Because one is more advanced than the other, they look like two different plants. The one outside Alex's window has already gone through the red stage and has now turned dark yellow.

EDM # 111 Draw a bowl

This is a Stephen Pearce bowl bought in West Cork probably in 1991 when we visited just after Paul was born. I love the bowl but I'm not sure about the feelings it inspires as I've always loved Cork (I was born there) but lately I feel I've lost the connection. Anyway, I thought I'd Google the name and see what's new and found out that Stephen Pearce is also a painter and has a few words about his process that I thought were interesting, here and here.

HB, B and 2B pencil.

A new Clematis

Happy Easter!

The diet has come to a temporary halt and this bunny made a brave sacrifice. Actually, only a third of it has been eaten so far - there is a surprising amount of chocolate in those ears! I stocked up on some bunnies a couple of weeks ago and unlike real bunnies that multiply like mad, the chocolate ones kept disappearing...


















I have millions of quilt books since I took up quilting a few years ago but surprisingly few art books. So last week I treated myself to three books and they are all wonderful - London Sketchbook by Graham Byfield, Venice Sketchbook by Fabrice Moireau and Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee. I've written more about the latter on my other blog but it was perhaps the first really inspiring art book I've read. I've been meaning to buy it since about 1979 (procrastination is my middle name!) so I'm really delighted to finally have it. It was somewhat of a surprise therefore to realise that Brian Froud wasn't the only illustrator. After all these years, I realise that Alan Lee's work has been just as much an inspiration. So I don't know who to credit this copy of one of the sketches to but I suspect it was drawn originally by Alan Lee. I copied it to get a feel of the strokes and how the drawings are done - copying other people's work is not generally my thing but it was quite interesting to analyse.

The London Sketchbook was even better than anticipated. It's an instant favourite. The scenes around London are wonderful as that is where I call home but the illustrations are mind blowing! I want to know how can someone draw such detail, in perfect perspective and in plein air!There must be nearly 200 paintings - how long did it take to complete the book? How long did each painting take? Did he attract crowds? I'm sure there must be a story to tell behind the making of this beautiful book.

The guinea pig has landed...

...on your balcony.

Unfortunately, my French lessons have finished now but my teacher would have been amazed. Every week she would go through different scenarios with me to prepare me for what vocabulary I might need. I would tell her for instance, that I have to go to the supermarket to get a loyalty card and she would go through it with me and then say 'now what else could they ask?' and without fail I would go back and tell her of the most unlikely things they said and how embarrassing it was and we would laugh. You just couldn't predict it.

I saw the guinea pig in next door's garden last summer (I assume it's the same one). I never imagined that same guinea pig would land on my balcony but yesterday morning, that is what happened. I mentioned before that the cats around here walk across the roofs all the time and in the early hours I vaguely remember Mark mumbling something about the racket on the roof and feel back to sleep.

There was a ring on the door later in the morning and one of the neighbours told us that her guinea pig had landed on the balcony - dead. It must have been out on their balcony next to ours and been taken by a bird of prey and dropped, via the roof judging by the noise, onto ours. There are loads of eagles around here and they have returned recently with the warmer weather. We let her in to collect it and I cursed my dust bunnies - very much alive and well and breeding like rabbits!

Mechanical pencils

I was trying out a new mechanical pencil today. I was asked what I thought of it and but for that I would have just put it in my bag and thought no more of it. It's a Lamy and it looks fairly boring so I bought it for drawing in public without drawing attention to myself (excuse the pun). So I tried some line drawings and I tried some shading and realised I don't really like these things. For line drawings they are fine although I find the line is a bit too regular and needs some working to get a nice variation. But for shading these mechanical pencils are very different to normal ones. Regular pencils have a very satisfying gritty feel as they glide along, you can feel the texture of the paper, but a mechanical pencil feels like it has ball bearings making it smoother to use and less responsive, as if the lead has different properties to an encased pencil lead. The line itself looks, to me anyway, quite different too - more like a definite line that you would get from a pen, and more difficult to play with and blend.

I'll still keep it with me though, and use it with my very tiny lightweight sketchbook for very brief sketches and for when I really don't want to be noticed!

I drew this quick sketch with an HB lead.

Those that didn't make it...

Someone wrote to me and said they would like to see the drawings that didn't make the blog - the 'doodles and mess-ups'. I have a lot of doodles, mostly swirls, squares and leaf shapes which really would be boring, but I fished out these drawings that I could have posted but didn't at the time. Above, a drawing of a cat, started because I thought the angle would be interesting but turned out it wasn't really!














This one is one of my few attempts at sketching in public. I was on the Gatwick Express train last year after visiting Mum and was sitting a row away from this very large man who reminded me a little of John Goodman, except he had a very fierce expression. He was only reading a paper but I thought if he suddenly looked up and caught my eye I would probably have died of fright! I'm glad I drew it and remembered a journey that would have otherwise been forgotten.


















The moneybox in the laundry of the apartment block in Veyrier. It cost a lot to use the washing machine and dryer and every apartment had one allotted time, three hours, to do the family's washing for the week - whether you were single or had newborns and toddlers. The owners obviously couldn't care less for their tenants. The mixed race family underneath us were regularly asked to leave, alleging late payments, whereas the two teenagers opposite them - who were there because their parents could afford to get rid of them, and who held parties every weekend until 3 or 4am, had friends running up and down the stairs knocking on neighbour's doors - were not.

















The only thing I liked about the apartments was the view from the balcony. I don't normally attempt to draw scenes, trees or mountains, I don't think I have a style that works for that. I read somewhere that artists have a certain focal view, either for close up, middle distance or long distance and I'm definitely the first. I've always liked looking at things close up and seeing small details. Some see the wood, some see the trees, I see the leaves - it would be boring if we were all the same!