Drawing Tuesday: Frieze Sculptures in Regent's Park

 Drawing Tuesday this week  was  of the Frieze  sculptures in the 'English Garden' of  Regent's Park ( Royal College of Physicians if wet!). Luckily the rain (mainly) held off   but the RCP is on my list to visit .

 My choice of subject ( John Chamberlain's  'Fiddlersfortune") was dictated  by there being a convenient bench to draw from, not having my sketching stool with me as I was going to the RA in the afternoon.  It was fiendish to draw with the highly textured pink aluminium surface and all those intertwined coils but I did enjoy  the freedom of using coloured biros before settling into a more considered study in pencil.  

 Our lunch at the 'Smokehouse'  was interrupted  by the noise of a helicopter , which landed on the lawn just behind us!

Making Visible

 I've  long been an admirer of the work of Paul Klee, this stitched silk painting from the 1990's of 'Florentine Villas'  being an early example of textiles  influenced by his work  ( I saw this  painting in the Pompidou  in 1980's and for a long time had the poster on my wall ). So the current exhibition at Tate Modern was unmissable - I went last night after work ( late night opening on Fridays). I debated whether to buy the catalogue in advance - after all I have 6 books of his work  but guess what , I succumbed! The approach was very different from the Hayward exhibition in 2002  being chronological  which   gave an insight to how series developed. Also I've moved on in those  12 years and my tastes have changed a little although I've still a soft spot for the patterns of  'Pastorale' and Structural II 1924 126 (below)

While I was disappointed there weren't any of the Tunisian watercolours I love, there was a lot that was new to me, like the wonderful lively marks in 'looking out of a cave'  1929 281. And with using a lot of red in my own work recently , I was more aware of how he's used that colour as a focal point.

 What really grabbed my attention however was the luminosity of the works  from 1932 using a form of pointillism with form given with  watercolour washes laid partially over the top. I loved  'Lowlands'  1932 9' reminiscent of the subtlety of the mudflats I've  taken so many  photos of!

 The  emerging form of a bird in the next picture to it (below)  reminded me of the egrets at the Chesil Beach visitor centre

 I think it was partially the marks that attracted me. One of the highlights of the Australia exhibition at the RA was a linocut  by GW Bot ' Gethsemane' on tapa cloth, so much so I bought a lino printing press with the intention of replicating my stitch marks  in a similar way.

But in the meantime, as a form of more instant gratification, I've been using pens to make 'stitch' marks on an offcut of a quilt painted with  acrylics and gesso.