Week 21 – it started with a bang and ended with a whimper, such is life and such has been my week. Not much more to add except that drawing has been an escape from thinking, when I sit and concentrate getting something down on paper – then the whole world falls away and I am peaceful for the time that it takes and that has been a real blessing to me in the last few weeks and days. Even saying that, it has sometimes been a struggle to get pencil to paper, see if you can spot the day when I really, really didn’t feel motivated!
Monthly Archives: May 2015
A Drawing A Day – Week 20
I can’t remember what reminded me but I was inspired to dig out my copy of Betty Edwards’ book ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’. I found that I had got about one third of the way through it before it was abandoned or forgotten. Chapter 6 was where I got to and this is where I picked it up and tried the exercises for Pure Contour Drawing, which is where you look at the item you are drawing but you do NOT look at your drawing as you are doing it! The idea is to do it slowly and let your eye really pay attention to the contours of the object as you draw. The activity is fun and he results are sometimes surprising, I found my first effort was really really small so the next day I made a conscious effort to pay attention to the length of line and got a much better (life size) result.
A Drawing a Day – Week 19
This week my week was frittered away with spring cleaning and gardening, it is amazing how the bright sunshine shows the grime and dust, so I have been shamed into putting my rubber gloves on and getting down and dirty! We have had rain and warmth at last and the garden has responded by bursting into growth, at least the weeds have. I spent an hour doubled over a flower bed and filled a wheelbarrow with weeds – how come they are so much quicker off the mark than the flowers I really want. Mind you some of the weeds are beautiful, I just love Herb Robert and always leave a few plants to flower and seed around the place. I just love self seeded plants, I try and be a low impact gardener, hence my garden is always a little shaggy around the edges. I was due to go to London to see an exhibition of coloured pencil drawings but my train was cancelled due to a ‘fatality’ further down the line, some poor soul could not cope any more, it made me sad to think that this person had no other option and I felt for the poor train driver too – so sad.
A Drawing A Day – Week 18
Well another week has passed, this one was uneventful and unremarkable so there is not much to say. We had a great day out this Monday (a holiday in the UK) and visited Anglesey Abbey outside Cambridge. There are wonderful grounds and we walked around the perimeter, we went in the watermill and watched the wheat being ground into flour with the whole mill vibrating with the force of the water pushing round the mill-stones; very evocative of the ‘olden days’. This week included the momentous day when I completed the first third of the project, something to celebrate I think. This weeks offerings: