New paintings and regular art updates.
Some sketches from our short break. Including two doodles when it was to wet and dark and the TV was on the blink. My hubby reading, a sketch inside the cabin, a drawing of Fountains Abbey in the rain, the view out of the window, and finally trees which I coloured in.
Sketching keeps me occupied and gives me something to do when I want to be artistic.
It doesn’t cost much to draw, you can use a biro and the back of an envelope. You have to try and stay dry but it’s good to get out and about.
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Who knew so many people would get together and draw for three days in mostly very wet conditions. Here are a few more photos of the event on Sunday in Hanley.
Art is important, it is creative, it shows us new things, new ideas, new ways of looking at things. It helps understanding of the complex as well as the simple.
I think it should be compulsory to do some sort of art at school (well I would), but nowadays the core curriculum seems to have shrunk without the breadth of knowledge of the past. In the meantime dumbing down seems to be the norm.
Ah life, so strange. Thank goodness for art.
This weekend was the first time Stoke-on-Trent urban sketchers had hosted the National Urban Sketchers event.
Over Friday, Saturday and today visitors to the city and local sketchers joined up at four venues. Stoke minster and its surroundings, Burslem school of art and places like the wedgewood institute in Burslem. Longport at the waiting room gallery and the cherished chimneys shop, and also the local canal, and finally today we were based up in Hanley looking at the inside and outside of the Potteries museum and art gallery.
There were a lot of attendees. From various parts of the country. I think they enjoyed it despite very wet conditions.
Can’t wait for next year. I don’t know where its planned to be held but I can’t wait to hear.
Just a few, sketched while at the Etruria festival. There was a giant chess board which I drew with a black sharpie, a few people were playing the game, but it seemed mainly young children walking across the board.
I was trying to draw the trees round the back of the museum. The trouble was there were too many leaves. One of the drawings is of the flint mill chimney and part of my husbands head. The other is of a couple sitting and drinking tea. I didn’t want them to know so I kept having to look away when they looked towards me.
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Not good photos of these. I’ve been using a black felt pen and them a broad nib cartridge pen. I took the photos of them in bright sunshine so they were overexposed. I’ve used the curves option on my phones photo editor to try and get them less bright but on one of them this caused a blue cast. The drawing of the cup is just a doodle because we were messing about with clay.
One of my favourite drawing websites over the years is Youdraw.com they were trying to collect over 500,000 drawings to bring people’s attention to population growth. I had the pleasure of drawing there, and sometimes the pain of moderating it.
Unfortunately these are distorted, they were originally drawn in long thin boxes but the WordPress system has turned them into squares.
I stopped drawing there because I had computer problems then started using a tablet which doesn’t let me draw there.
The site has a tiny space to draw in and only has a thick and thin black pen and a thick and thin eraser. But you could work out how to erase and then redraw so you could get some impressive shading results.
I miss the old days. I’m glad I saved a lot of my old drawings.
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Two years ago I ended up in hospital and had to go on intravenous antibiotics. I was so miserable I decided to get my partner to bring a sketch book in so I could at least draw the view.
The room I was in was on one of the top floors, so unless I got close to the window all I could see was a few rooftops then sky. I took a few photos of the drawings on my phone while I was there for a few days.
My most miserable memory was the food. Tasteless stuff, pap, soft with no flavour. How patients are supposed to get better when the food is so awful … I think it must have cost pence to make. I remember enjoying the sandwiches, they were the only tasty thing in there.
Apart from that everyone was good and kind. But I was pleased to escape. Unfortunately when the ambulance took me home there was no one there to let me in! Luckily my partner turned up so I managed to avoid being carted back to the hospital! Happily we don’t normally have to pay for treatment in this country. Long may it remain so.
