Inspired By Käthe

  In June, I will be running a two – day masterclass at the Glynn Vivian art gallery, linked to their excellent Kathe Kollwitz exhibition.  Exploring her life and political activism through her drawings and printmaking, I will be covering two techniques, drypoint and woodcut, drawing inspiration directly from her magnificent work and using the exhibitionContinue reading “Inspired By Käthe”

Ripped From The Darkness

Our local art gallery, The Glynn Vivian, is showing a fabulous exhibition of drawings and prints by the formidable German artist Käthe Kollwitz. I have admired her work and life for so many years, I’m beside myself to see this exhibition so close to home. I like to study artists I admire and copy fromContinue reading “Ripped From The Darkness”

Talk Turned Geeky

Husb and I had a teatime visit from friends today and, as one of them is a fellow printmaker, the talk turned geeky. She noticed a number of my blockprinted portrait heads on the wall and we chatted about materials and techniques. Instead of the traditional lino or wood, or even modern vinyl, I usedContinue reading “Talk Turned Geeky”

Number 94

With the best will in the world, sometimes life just gets in the way of all your plans. I started drawing 30-minute sketches of Baby Boomers almost two years ago with the intention of finishing one hundred by the end of 2016, but I didn’t quite manage it because, well, like I said, life gotContinue reading “Number 94”

Grist To The Mill

  And here’s Baby Boomer number 92 out of the 100 I plan to sketch by the end of this year. I drew my first back in April 2015, thinking it would just take me a few months, but life (work) got in the way and I didn’t realise the amount of organising that wouldContinue reading “Grist To The Mill”

And Yet Another Beautiful Boomer

And it’s getting difficult to find titles for my Baby Boomer blogs now that I’ve reached number 83 – I think I’ve done every permutation on Baby Boomer that there is! I’m so loving doing these sketches and having conversations with my sitters, discourses that will eventually feed into the final work, which I hopeContinue reading “And Yet Another Beautiful Boomer”

Booming History

I spend some time having conversations with the Baby Boomers who sit for me and these are as important to the development of this work as the sketches. With such a wide age group, spanning 18 years, there’s a huge range of experience and history amongst us all. It’s fascinating to listen to those BoomersContinue reading “Booming History”

Doing Porridge

  I’ve spent a couple of days in an old prison! Doing time with some delightful people. I can’t say any more for now but there’ll be more news in a few months. In the meanwhile, I came back home earlier today and had hundreds of emails to sort through. Luckily I worked hard onContinue reading “Doing Porridge”

Specs And Beards

I’m on a bit of a roll with the baby Boomer sketches – here’s another. Over the years I’ve concentrated on life drawing and whole figure sketches, portraiture is fairly recent and I’ve fund that the two most difficult things to draw are spectacles and beards. And here is my latest model with both!

Wild Curly Hair

Here’s another of my series of portrait drawings of fabulous Baby Boomers. I’m so enjoying doing these, the conversations I’ve been having are just as important as the physical act of drawing; it’s informing and consolidating my thoughts for the future development of the work. This Baby Boomer is a fellow artist and was havingContinue reading “Wild Curly Hair”