A Book of Marks from Daily Drawing

It's 'Drawing Tuesday'  but I'm not  at Museum of London Docklands  but at home still recovering  from a horrible cold and glad I'm not going out  in the wild weather. I've been enjoying the daily prompts for the 30daysketchbook challenge (more in another post)  but  also sewing together a record of my  daily drawing.  

 I've started  another  'dropcloth'  ( A1 sheet of paper) which I place underneath my sketchbook  when I draw. Over the year it accumulates  paint splashes, colour trials, doodles, notes. 

  When on the Dorothy  Caldwell  course in Puglia,  we made small books using our ' dropcloth'  to practice making  signatures and sewing them together, needle weaving with embroidery floss. The paper we had then was half the size ( 32 pages, 18 signatures) . I wasn't sure  how 64  pages, 32 signatures would work   but I'm pleased with the effect even if I did lose count  during stitching in a few places!

Drawing Tuesday : William Morris Gallery

Drawing Tuesday on 10 December was at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. What a delightful and interesting place, I  haven't been there before so spent most of my time looking round  with just a couple of drawings of  De Morgan bottles in the 'Shop' Gallery. Drawing images on curved shapes is challenging ( especially if you make the mistake of using more than one viewpoint!) 

 There were several school groups  there  , also sketching  and I learnt a lot eavesdropping on the teachers   ( they have some excellent  learning resources  here) . There was an activity room that contained original print blocks you could touch ( above)  and I was charmed to see William Morris's artist smock (  though not much evidence of paint marks on it, perhaps it was for 'best' )

The current exhibition ' Pioneers' explores the  connections between William Morris and the Bauhaus. Interesting textiles, furniture and ceramics  but what caught my eye was a couple of watercolours by Gerhard Marcks . 

 'Ploughing the Fields'  Gerhard Marcks 

'Workers Constructing a house' Gerhard Marcks 

The museum café where we  met up to compare notes was one of the best I've been in - well lit, a long table sufficient for our group and delicious coffee and food. I'll definately be returning...

Drawing Tuesday: African textiles at the Brunei Gallery

 Drawing Tuesday  last week was the fantastic African  textiles  at the Brunei Gallery , SOAS. I bought a copy of HALI  magazine which includes an article  on the exhibition  ( along with  many other delicious items ) but resisted the book at £50 

So much to choose from , do look at Margaret Cooters blogpost 

 I   settled for copying some of the amulet  designs on this talismanic cloth

And then I couldn't resist  these wonderful  hats from Camaroon

Drawing Tuesday at Tate Britain

 First  impressions on arrival  at Tate Britain yesterday  for ' Drawing Tuesday'  was  of very high levels  of  noise from excited children. They were visiting in groups  to see the Steve McQueen Year 3 Project and take part  in  a range of linked activities. Art works in various galleries had   notes  next to them  to encourage questions   and thought which was great to see.  But  actively encouraging the children to shout and scream   at the top of their voices was overwhelming ,  they could be heard some distance   away, I wish I'd brought earplugs with me !

  Usually  when I visit the  Tate for 'Drawing Tuesday' sessions ,  I either do several  colour  sketches of work that interests me or  more recently,  draw from sculpture.  

 After wandering   for a while around  the ' Walk Through British Art" galleries   concentrating on the 20th Century and contemporary work,   I kept coming back to  this wonderful  wooden sculpture ' Johanaan'  by  Ronald Moody ( interested to see that he too was inspired by work in the British Museum ! ) 

  It was the way he'd  made  use  of the grain of the wood to suggest contours which fascinated  me  and I tried to   capture that using  calligraphy  pens with graphite  over the top  to suggest  the form.

  It reminded me  of some of the drawings of tattooed  figures and masks from the Oceania   exhibition.  After lunch  I came back  and did a larger drawing  of  an ear.

 Some of the paintings  etc that caught my eye : 

 Textile piece by  Alice Channer 

 Deanna Petherbridge 

Vicken Parsons 

 Wilhelmina Barnes- Graham 

 Peter Lanyon 

 Roger Hilton 

Terry Frost 

Ben Nicolson 

Winifred Nicolson 

 Paul Feiler 'Morvah'  

(  looking for an image  of this online  I found the  work below , stunning!) 

Paul Feiler ' Crossed Forms' 

Drawing Tuesday at the Petrie Museum

 After drawing in the African Gallery of British Museum  in the morning, I spent last Tuesday afternoon  drawing pots at the Petrie Museum as I have many times before! I still get overwhelmed by the amount of  objects stuffed into the cases and deciding what to draw  always takes a while. In the end it  came down to sitting at a convenient table with a chair  and drawing what was in front of me !  

UPDATE :   As  Margaret Cooter notes  in her blogpost on our visit,  such delicate drawings are difficult to photograph  well, the marks get lost on the page. I   scanned in the drawing, , increased  contrast in Photoshop and printed out a copy , drawing round the  shapes with a large Pitt  marker in sanguine.