Contemporary Drawing Sketchbook - Data Gathering at Wellcome Collection

On Thursday,  after lunch  in the members room and a quick look round rooms 90,91 at British Museum ( watercolours and ' where the thunderbird lives'),  I headed off to Wellcome Collection for the first session of City Lit Contemporary Drawing Sketchbook  course.

After a discussion on various ways of recording : eg different materials ; collage; continuous line; making notes; we spent an hour each on 2 different activities: drawing 2  commissioned works by contemporary artists ( lots to choose from)  looking at methods used and how they'd interpreted their them and then drawing from exhibition ' Electricity- the spark of life'             

 I first studied the glass interpretation of  the swine flu virus by   Luke Jerram, fascinated by the different qualities of the glass itself but also the shadows and reflection. I could see rings of of papercut  people in the shadows . Intentional, accidental, does it matter?

Then in the  reading room , high up ,difficult to see  easily , 'Sewing Body'  by Alice Anderson  which incorporated personal objects and a needlework figure wrapped in fine copper thread. I used 0.1 pen to work out what was going on in the lines  in contrast to the graphite I'd used for the glass. Note to self - try different materials using same subject.

On her website, found picture of wrapped lightbulb , appropriate for the electricity theme  and also some photographs of her performances. Capturing motion is the main theme that came out of my observations.

 No photos allowed in the electricity exhibition so  had to do a lot of searching for similar model of  fantastic 3d model of electricity consumption assembled from hundreds of daily record cards.

 This led to  all kinds of   wonder in Parametric 3D forms

 Then a study  of  first X-Ray  by Roentgen  and  trying to capture the motion in film on  Cineradiography articulation of limbs

 I was just thinking I could do with a book showing details of hand anatomy  and drawing instruction when  the following  day  I picked up How to Draw Hands Oliver Senior  for £1 in the Fleur Bookshop!

 I've long had a bit of a thing about hands - in Wellcome collection; double hand print ;  and look what's currently under the sewing machine for International Threads .

On Saturday  I met up with some members of CQKent at  Oast Quilters, with an interesting  talk by Mary McIntosh  and today I'm returning to Brunei  Gallery  and then back to Wellcome for some more data gathering  for this Thursday. Housework has been abandoned this week!

Knit and Stitch Olympia March 2017

Despite not arriving home from Rydal  until after 9pm on Friday, I was at Olympia for Knit and Stitch on good time , if a little weary.  I had volunteered to help out on the QGBI workshop ,  helping  visitors make log cabin  blocks for Linus Quilts . Despite having practised at home, even I got the odd piece the wrong way round! Some  lovely people: a lady who made tiny shoes; another who did embroidery and applique in Tracey Emin's studio; a young girl back for a second go so she could perfect her seams ( making a better job than I did!).

I had some time in the morning for a bit of retail therapy (12wt  threads from Barnyarns and some African strip cloth) but mainly a good look round the textile galleries. There may not be many of them  but they were all worth a visit. it was lovely to see my 'Eroding Margins' again in the CQ 'On the Edge' .  I  found the exhibits by the 62 Group and Quinary   thought provoking and inspiring  but what stole my heart  was 'What do I need To do to make it Ok?'  I literally stopped in my tracks when I saw the  Dorothy Caldwell  pieces !

I'm still hugely influenced by the class I did with Dorothy in Puglia and a lot of my  work is based on using old textiles , including 'Eroding Margins'  which is made of indigo dyed old quilts,  so this exhibit on darning and mending really resonated with me.  Her notebooks and samples on display were a delight, I love to see the process of people's thoughts and making as much as the finished work.

Rydal Hall Retreat - more sketching than stitching

My annual retreat at Rydal Hall with the NWCQ group  seemed to go faster than ever - this is our 5th time there. I  left the large piece  I'm working on at the moment at home with the intention of just responding to this environment I know so well now. I did very little stitching  apart from the postcard above and  some time each day on my daily stitching project  but went out painting every day  

 My bedroom was in a different part of the house than I've stayed before with views out the back towards the wood. There was a lot of fallen trees -  you could see how shallow the root system was on the one above,  no surprise given the rocky substrate it was growing on. There were bulbs around the trunk having to change their direction of growth !

Lots of logpiles around too although not quite so colourful as the ones last year. New sculptures to admire and older ones beginning to merge and disappear into their surroundings.

My studio space in the work room soon became covered in scraps of fabric and sketchbooks. !

I put together the start of a Journal Quilt based on the rushing water and stones ( seen  here with part of my daily stitching 'winding cloth' .)

The 'grot' overlooking Rydal Falls is a favourite if frustrating painting place - it's impossible to capture the colours and the patterns of water but I enjoy trying.  It's my first port of call every year  and at least it was shelter from the sleet.

Another day, another painting station was a bench in the 'quiet garden'  not quite as peaceful as you'd think with the fighter jets practising overhead !

I was especially lucky this time in that I had company  on sketching expeditions on 2 days . On Wednesday morning Millie, Pauline and I headed off to the art shop in Grasmere followed  by coffee before heading off up some back roads to do some painting. We found a narrow metal bench :too high for me, my legs were dangling ;Pauline had a stone for her feet but got in a tangle with the Velcro on her coat ;Millie became embedded in her tripod stool. Then the rain came and washed our paintings away. Time for another venue once we'd recovered from  laughing. I introduced them to my favourite bench at Rydal Water ( much more substantial  and the weather behaved itself a bit better).  

The  clouds lifted a bit, the wind dropped and we were treated to  spectacular mirror-like reflections

The next day it was Millie, Karen and I that headed up a path behind the house  following Rydal Beck upstream.

Still very damp, using a tree stump as a  table, it took ages for the paint to dry  but there's something magical about  painting in situ. Even when  the results are not that great, the process  and sense of place make for a memorable experience.

 As a group we had less planned than in previous years, we've got much more comfortable about a relaxed timetable ( fitting around meals and traybakes of course!).  Judy F. gave us a slide presentation showing highlights from the last 6 years . Lots of trying to work out who was who from back views on walks  and trying to remember what year we did   different activities ( blind stitching probably the most memorable)

Linda B.  set us   an interesting  design activity  on Tuesday in the hour before the bar opened.  We'd been told to bring an A3 piece of paper - painted, printed , crumpled, whatever. Linda then divided each sheet into 12 and then redistributed them to us , the challenge to use some of everything in a composition. .  

As the selection I had were so diverse, I made 2 pieces ( above)

It resulted in a wide range of responses  in scope and scale including some 3D structures. Linda asked who had  started off with a  concept and  who had responded to the papers themselves   - roughly 50:50 split . She's already written it up for CQ newsletter!

We headed back home from Friday lunchtime onwards, refreshed and reinvigorated with time spent in such a lovely location and good company .Already looking forward to same time , same place next year.

Nottingham Wedding ( with uninivited guest)

On Thursday , we travelled up to  Nottingham for the wedding of Ian's goddaughter Hester on Friday , a lovely occasion   though we could have done without 'Doris', several guests  were delayed or had to cancel

The ceremony was followed by tea and cake at the back of the church ( what a  great idea ) with the wedding cake  provided by best man/ bake off contestant Tom Gillford. So the  wedding 'cake '  cut at the reception was a tower of cheese ! The  fantastic origami swan table decorations  were made by Hester's brother Edward ( one came home with me )

 Cheese Wedding cake

Bride and Godfathers

 We got off relatively lightly with our travels on 'Doris Day'  with a delay of only 4 hours. It was  service as usual from Faversham into London but then there were no trains from St Pancras to Nottingham. Advised  to travel to Grantham from Kings Cross we  ground to a halt outside Stevanage for about 2 hours due to a warehouse roof on the tracks . Gr Waiting at Grantham station was the worst part - bitterly cold and windy but the  windswept sunset skies were spectacular.  

Before the wedding ceremony we spent a few hours at Nottingham  Castle, very well laid out and interesting museum with this giant pumpkin by Kate Malone amongst other contemporary ceramics .

I had a good look around the textile section while Ian was  chatting to the volunteer in  the regimental museum . Each to there own - besides the Torvill and Dean costumes from 'Balero' at Saravejo  and some medieval fragments, I loved this mummers shirt.  Then Ian found a friend in the castle gardens:

' a bit less scary than the wife'

Tomorrow I'm off up to Rydal Hall in Cumbria - hope 'Ewan' doesn't disrupt travel plans too much....

Tour of Canada House, Trafalgar Square

Last Friday,  several of the 'Drawing Tuesday'  group met for a tour of Canada House (home of the High Commission to  GB) .  We even met very briefly , the High Commissioner herself. It was refurbished a couple of years ago and someone  who'd been  on a previous tour said the artworks were  fantastic - they were right!  The 'chandalier' light descending through the staircase  was  wonderful .

 Each conference/meeting room is either named after a Prime Minister or a province/ territory.  We started off in British Columbia ( where Ian was born  although the rest of the Canadian  side of his family are from Manitoba )   with  carpet  based on  Haida artwork :  29  bespoke carpets  were commissioned  in total! 

 So many artworks on display ( including an Emily Carr painting)  and I particularly like how local wood were  used for the tables  etc). I had a look round the art gallery  before the tour , enjoying the mark-making and colour of  the exhibition  by Andrew Salgado .

We finished  off on the roof garden with stunning views of Nelson's column and beyond. I've a soft spot for views through balustrades ( like the ones at Rydal where I'm off on retreat next week )    and liked how it framed the current  4th plinth piece.

Choir practice tonight then off to Nottingham in the morning  for  the wedding of Ian's goddaughter.  I've packed for that  but have  only Sunday  to finish ( or rather start!)  my packing for Rydal. How come a relaxing retreat involves so much stress and decision making??!!  And now have to take into account Storm Doris.