Did a hard session at the allotment this evening – it was too hot in the daytime – mostly weeding. The alternating torrential rain and hot sunshine is turning it into a jungle of weeds. After, I sat on a bench in the park and scribbled with some willow charcoal into my Khadi sketchbook.
Husb and I took a stroll along our local beach this evening, the weather was gorgeous, warm and sunny. I sat and drew the old Slip Bridge with charcoal into my Khadi sketchbook. The light was extreme and threw the bridge into sharp black and white so I squinted my eyes and tried to draw the light and shade, what I was actually seeing rather than trying to draw a bridge. The result is simplistic but dramatic with strange shapes where the symmetrical arches should be.
I finished faking Friday’s faux Hockney, that’s about 4 hours in all. I’m not a painter, I much prefer drawing and printmaking. If I’m honest, to me, painting is like colouring in. I know painters will be outraged, but once I’ve done the drawing, that’s the creative bit over for me. But, doing these weekly paintings has been good practice and kept me occupied through the pandemic.
I also made a couple of rhubarb crumbles. I’m taking the big crumble to family for their tea and the smaller one is for Husb. He takes no prisoners when it comes to crumble.
The rhubarb in the garden is HUGE! It’s like a rhubarb jungle out there.
Why not join in with Ed Sumner’s Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Friday lunchtimes. It’s free or a donation if you can afford it. Next week is Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire.
I carried on with the painting I started yesterday, a fake of David Hockney’s “Going Up Garroway Hill” that was the subject of Ed Sumner’s Friday lunchtime Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook. It’s been good discipline for me to do this weekly challenge throughout the pandemic. It’s been really great the amount of things that have sprung up across the world during lockdown. Painting isn’t something I normally do much of so it’s been useful to learn and improve my techniques and also studying famous painters and analysing how they do their work. There’s probably another hour or two before it’s finished – although I could keep on refining it all week, but I won’t.
And today I baked a classic Madeira cake. I read many years ago that the mark of a good Madeira is a crack across the top. It has that, so I’m pleased. I’m baking for a family funeral on Monday, so won’t get a chance to taste it until then.
It’s faking Friday again and the subject of this week’s painting session with the Cheese and Wine Painting Club over on Facebook was David Hockney’s “Going Up Garrowby Hill”. I’m about halfway through, I’ve got an hour or two left to work on it, there’s a lot of patterning. I’m using Liquitex heavy body acrylics.
And then I did some baking …. these Chelsea Buns are halfway there, just need baking off now.
Next week at The Cheese and Wine Painting Club, we’re doing Turner’s “The Fighting Temeraire”. It’s free or a donation if you can afford to. It’s family friendly and suitable for beginners.
I was queueing outside the pharmacy in the Uplands are of the city and spotted this chap across the road leaning up against the lampost, gazing at his mobile phone. He was queueing outside the other pharmacy.
Then I made a poached pear and chocolate cake to take to my niece. I hope she remembers things like this when she’s choosing my nursing home.
I’m working away on a pretty big work of art inspired by my experience of the pandemic lockdown, but that’s now a process – the original inspiration has come and gone, the ideas have been worked out and now it’s just cutting and printing blocks and sewing stuff together. It’s not particularly creative now. It’s just work. So I still need to keep creativity going.
I’ve been meaning to experiment with collage for a while. I’ve got a load of hand coloured vintage papers in my plans chest so I got some of them out and laid them at random, first onto a sheet of white paper and then onto one I’d coloured with my home made walnut ink. Randomness was embraced by the Surrealists to ignite imagination and keep creativity alive, and collage and frottage were two of the techniques they used. I don’t know if anything will come from these, but it doesn’t matter. It’s good to get creative without a plan to produce a final work. I didn’t stick the pieces down so I’ll keep rearranging them until something grabs me.
Yesterday the weather was lovely, warm and sunny not like today which is pouring down. Anyway just 24 hours ago Husb and I went for a walk in Penllegare Woods. We hadn’t been since before lockdown started. I saw this strange contorted tree so stopped to sketch it. I used Daler Rowney medium sticks of willow charcoal into a Khadi sketchbook.
Now that we’re having some easing of lockdown in Wales, it’s possible to visit family again, as long as we’re outdoors and wearing masks and so on…. Luckily we’re having a pretty good summer and there’s plenty of outdoor spaces. The 19th century terraced housing tends to have back gardens and in the 20th century, housing development in the area was influenced by the Garden City idea so there’s lots of green space for both public tenants and private owner occupiers. Husb and I visited our cousins and sat in their gorgeous garden, chatting with our masks on and moving further apart to drink our tea. It’s strange not being able to hug family, but these strange times will pass.
Earlier this week when I was thinking about white ravens, I thought I’d maybe try and develop some imagery using collage. So I rooted around in my plans chest and found some vintage papers and printmaking rejects that I had randomly coloured with oil and soft pastels. They’re a good starting point.
And I made rhubarb crumble, There’s tons growing in the garden. I’ve made rhubarb chutney, rhubarb gin and I bottled some in syrup. Oh and a bottle of rhubarb cordial – or laxative as I accurately call it.
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