Animals in Art

During September and October some of my animal linocuts are part of a great group exhibition at Storm restaurant in Poole. The exhibition features work by six artists with very different styles. Below are examples from some of the artists and a lovely little article that was in last Saturday’s local Echo. Yes, that’s me in the paper, urgh!

 

Egyptian Cat by Linda Sale  ~ http://www.linda-sale-fine-art.com/

 

 

Chicken by Sarah Lou Goy - http://www.pinkspiral.co.uk/

 

 

Dog portraits by Katherine Cromwell - http://www.facebook.com/KatherinesPaintings

 

 

Johanna Kennedy Wall - http://humbysarah.wix.com/johanna-kennedy-wall

A big thank you to Linda Sale who organises the exhibitions at Storm and to Frances Miles the restaurant owner who does a great job supporting local artists. Also, thanks to Katherine Cromwell for arranging the Echo article! I was also lucky enough to have work on display at Storm last summer, when they were filmed for the series 'Harbour Lives' with Ben Fogle. I know it's not a huge claim to fame but some of my watercolour still-lives were on the walls of the restuarant in a few shots of the series!

More info and shots of the exhibition here - http://stormart.webs.com/

Summer Art & Craft Workshops 2012

The Arlington Arts Cafe in Bournemouth is running an exciting series of art and craft workshops this summer. There will be friendly tuition provided in the beautiful setting of the café terrace, overlooking Bournemouth’s Lower gardens.

Ever fancied learning how to crochet, sculpt or print? Are you a keen amateur painter or a complete beginner looking to improve your skills? Then these are the workshops for you!

The workshops run from late June right through into September. Each session will be for 2 hours in the morning or afternoon and will require no previous experience. Adults and children welcome! (all children must be accompanied by an adult ).

I will be running a number of Relief Printmaking workshops as part of the summer season. From potato prints to wood engraving, relief printing is a great way to create exciting and repeatable printed images. On my workshops you will be taken through the steps to create your own original, handmade prints using simple equipment including
plasticine, card and polystyrene. 

The price for each 2 hour workshop is just £7.50 per person and includes a free drink!

Booking is not essential, but recommended to avoid disappointment. All paper, paints and equipment will be provided, so you are welcome to just turn up on the day.

To book, or find out more leave me a comment or -

Book on one of the workshops on Facebook
or
Phone the Arlington Arts Café on 01202 552879 or contact  Ruth Kelvin on 0758 6431184
or
Email enquiries@arlingtonbournemouth.co.uk or email ruthkelvin37@gmail.com.
or
visit the Arlington Arts Cafe website

This series of Summer Art workshops have been arranged and co-ordinated by Ruth Kelvin of the RK Collection.

For further info and the full schedule see the Arlington Arts Cafe website

Life drawing with Trish Jubb

A couple of weeks ago I spent a great day's life drawing at the Arlington Hotel as organised by Bournemouth Creative Breaks and taught by Trish Jubb. Trish is a great teacher, I've been to a number of life drawing classes in the past and often the teacher gives very little teaching or advice. Trish's exercises were really useful, and she explained everything very well and didn't try and teach too much at once.

We had a lovely day including a sunny lunch break spent on the terrace overlooking Bournemouth gardens and listening to live rat pack classics from a singer on the bandstand. Here are a few of my favourite drawings from the day:

Julia Kay's Portrait Party

A month ago today I stumbled across a new group on Flickr - Julia Kay's Portrait Party. The group's rules are simple, join the group and draw or paint portraits of other artists and invite other artists to draw you!

I’ve always wanted to paint portraits, but it’s not always easy to find the sitters in the ‘real world’. So this is a great pool of resource – not only photographic, but also for the inspiration of seeing everyone else's style and technique.

It’s such a motivation to have the encouragement and support of a thriving group of diverse artists like this!

In the last few weeks I’ve painted and drawn in totally new ways than I’m used to. And now that I’ve added my photos to the pool it’s a whole new joy to see the amazing and creative versions of me. Anne Watkins summed it up beautifully - waking up to find new portraits of herself was like finding love notes in a bottle – treasures flung across the unknown – from people she could not hear or touch, only see and imagine.

For a great description of the birth of the Portrait Party and it's exciting growth, see Julia's article on the Women's Voices for Change site.

Here are just a few of some of my favourite portraits, some of the portraits I've done, and some of the fab portraits of me!

1. Andrew Mirzoian by Mariah O'Neill
2. Gila Rayberg by Jennifer Lawson
3. Margaux B by R K Schlueter
4. Peter Vanayk by me
5. NC Mallory by me
6. Me by NC Mallory
7. Wally Torta by me
8. NC Mallory by Wally Torta
9. Me by Sean Cronin
10. Sean Cronin by Timothy Schorre

To see more of the portraits or join the party go here
To check out Julia's great photostream go here

It was so difficult to choose just a few favourites that I'll be posting more soon!

Draw Gallery - sneak preview!

It's new, it's here and it's amazing!!
How would you like to draw your own gallery in seconds?
Here are some examples, I'm sure you can do better!:

To draw your own gallery:

- Use the tools on the tool bar to draw your own gallery.
- Use the Image tool to draw any shape you want an image to appear in. You can draw as many images as you like.
- Use the Next Button tool to draw any shape you want for a next button. You can draw as many next buttons as you like.
- Use the Prev Button tool to draw any shape you want for a previous button. You can draw as many previous buttons as you like.
- Use the Decorate tool to decorate the gallery. Use the colour palette to choose your colours. Remember you can also use the green and red Next and Prev Button tools as decorations.
- The tool bar can be hidden using the toggle tab on the side.

Have a go here: The Draw Gallery

It's not completely finished yet, but it's pretty good!

At the moment it's picking up pictures from my Flickr Feed, but there may be further developments so that it can pick up any Flickr feed...

Architecture Art on Etsy

1. Charles Bridge - Arkitektur

2. Blue House - James Keniston

3. Westbourne Arcade - Francesca Whetnall at Dick and Franny (me)

4. Sanctuary of Light - Aaron Overstreet

5. Tall Houses - Dancing Girl Art

6. Ion Gardens - Olechko

7. Laundry Day - ArtQuirk

8. English Cottage - ArtWorm

9. Architectural Column - Ahvantegarde

10. Custom House Portrait - Doodle and Hoob

11. Sunlight in Uzes - Mozo

12. Royal Albert Hall - Olechko

13. Old Blue House - Debra L Phillips

14. Prague Church - Inkfinger Sutter

15. 1849 Antique Drawing - Banana Strudel

16. A bit of Paris - ArtQuirk

Portraits

I would love to have the time and subjects to paint and draw more portraits. When I lived in student flats at University it was great to have lots of willing subjects available! Hopefully I'll find some time and people to get back into portraiture again someday. For now I'm happy to enjoy the amazing variety and beauty of portraits on Flickr - there are some stunningly talented people out there, here are some of my favourites:

1. Alma Garret, 2. Disturbed, 3. susan, 4. SUEÑOS DE BAILAR, 5. V, 6. Commissioned George, 7. Misia, 8. Paula Ramires - Portrait, 9. M6, 10. grief I, 11. SARAH VAUGHAN (American Jazz Vocalist) re-post from 2008 by request, 12. Rostro ( Autorretrato), 13. study #2, 14. sp drawing, 15. pastel portrait of laura from 07, 16. version

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Struggling

I've been trying to combine drawing with painting, but I'm still working out how to achieve what I'm aiming for, and work out what that is. I want the clean line and detail of a pen drawing, with the colour and freshness of a watercolour. Here are a couple of my recent attempts.

In this painting of Forde Abbey in Somerset I started with a sketch using derwent drawing pencils in earth colours. I then added paint with large loose brush strokes, adding extra texture with salt. I also used some pastels once the paint was dry.

I started this expressive painting of Barcelona sunshine with some bold pen drawing for just a brief outline. I then went mad with bright blues, purples and yellows!

Any comments will be much appreciated! :-)

Secrets of the Saucy Seaside Postcard & The Big Draw

Russell-Cotes Art gallery and Museum is an architecturally fantastic building which holds a great collection of art assembled by the husband and wife collectors Annie and Merton Russell-Cotes.

It's a great gallery and this weekend we went along to see the Saucy Seaside Postcard exhibition.

The exhibition is a window into the past, showing the workings of the Yorkshire based card company Bamforth, including a great documentary showing the men behind the postcards.

It was also a chance to see original sketches and paintings for the postcards and cards. One of the most interesting things about the exhibition was the selection of Valentines cards which included Valentine 'warnings' - which ranged from hints to nosey neighbours not to be so gossipy to personal attacks and threats!

This weekend Russell-Cotes was also hosting some Big Draw events. The Big Draw is a UK wide campaign to get everyone drawing! This October it's the 9th Big Draw with events at over 1000 venues including galleries, museums, libraries, shopping centres and schools.

See the Big Draw site for more info: http://www.campaignfordrawing.org/bigdraw/

I managed to miss the morning's tuition session, but I still had a go at drawing this sculpture. I spent a couple of hours but could have taken longer over it. I did get a couple of tips from the tutor but I couldn't stay long enough to get her feedback on my adjustments. It's not quite right but it was good practice!

Russell-Cotes Gallery site: http://russell-cotes.bournemouth.gov.uk/default.asp

Step by Step - Botanical painting

Some of the photos are a bit too dark but I managed to remember to take a few as I painted this picture of three Sycamore leaves. View the set as a slideshow , or have a look at the set on Flickr for some notes on each of the steps.