Week 51!!?? You gotta be kiddin’ me! Well fancy that, just 9 more drawings to go…….. Well, they are not very exciting drawings this week, my workroom is in such a muddle I have only been able to perch on the corner of my table with a pencil and an A4 pad.
350 Christmas Trees
351 Shoes
352 Ipswich roofs
353 Boxes for deep beds
354 Ivy
355 Shrub leaves
356 Holly
An obsession with Ivy this week, each leaf unique and marvellous, I could draw nothing but Ivy from now on and still find something new every time. How am going to decide what to focus on? We concentrated on portraits in Life Drawing this week, plus I tried another self portrait – harsh! With I big birthday coming up I should stop doing self portraits as my actual image conflicts badly with my imagined image. But I am very drawn (no pun intended) to drawing faces, it is so interesting and intriguing.
336 Singh sister
337 Ivy
338 Ivy
339 Ivy
340 Arghhhh
341-1 Figure
341-2 Head
342 Maple Leaf
The final month has arrived, it is now a countdown to the finish. I have a spreadsheet that I tick the days off and I have reached the last column; 365 days fitted onto 2 A4 sheets. The only thing that I have not been able to find since the move is sheet one from 1st January until 30th July which is a shame as I wanted to include it in my final post. I have been investigating how to get a blog printed (not for vanity reasons as most of these drawings are heading for the great bonfire in the sky – but just as a record for myself) and have found a site called Blog2Print – has anyone used this service or can recommend another?
329 Saucepans
330 Feet
331 Clementine
332 Watching TV
333 Ginko leaf
334-1 Head
334-2 Life Drawing
335 Iris berries
I recieved I gift this week from an old friend which in light of my current project made my heart sink; a small book about 12cm square entitled ‘642 Tiny Things to Draw’. ARGHHH I’m on my way to my first 365 things to draw and some kind person (you know who you are) gives me another 642! Things to draw include ‘a pipsqueak’, a dreidel (yes really – definition please anyone?), ‘a glimpse’ and ‘a rolled oat’. It’s enough to send me into a decline………..however I have a sneaky feeling that I just might give it a go. Actually I got two unsolicited books as gifts this week and I randomly flicked open the second one and opened it at a chapter entitled Pure Gratitude, Infinite Thankfulness, very apt and appropriate to my intention to focus more on the glass half full than the glass half empty.
322 Monkey Puzzle
323 Coffee Table
324 Dresser
325 Larch
326 Roofs
327-1 Life Drawing
327-2 Life Drawing
328 Stuff
This is going to be a short post again, I’m not finding much to talk about and I will be repeating myself, I’m boring myself these days. I’m thinking that my new life does not have a shape or structure yet, the routines and patterns that framed my days have gone and I have yet to make a new pattern. I used to be strict and have an ‘art’ day a week, no longer; I had a day for housework, gone; a day for sorting through my mountain of photos and making albums, not any more; a day for admin and planning, ha ha you must be joking. All these (boring) routines went when we started packing back in April and I have not been able to establish them again. Spontaneous?! what me? No way, I need a framework to hold me together because I find it all too easy to fritter away my time.
308 Chinese Lantern
309 Bay branch
310 Squash
311 It’s that man again
312 Ginger Root
313-1 Life Drawing class (tone)
313-2 Life Drawing class
314 Another Squash
I cracked out the serious charcoal this week! What fun, I had forgotten; I have been fiddling around with charcoal wrapped in a pencil – ha, that’s for wimps. I now have a box of willow charcoal which comes in virtually weightless slender twiglet shaped pieces of blackness. Thanks to Ed (my life drawing teacher) who got us to use tone this week I have felt very ‘artistic’ and getting very dirty.
287 Can’t be bothered pine cone
288 Wonky box
289 Orange thingie
290 Unknown shrub leaf
291 Watching Sunday TV
292 Legs Study
293 Old school selfie
Another skimpy post this week…………………. I am at a loss to where my days go, and so quickly too.
252 Washing line and water butt
253 Cyclamen 1
254 Cyclamen 2
255 Cyclamen 3
256 Cyclamen 4
257 Cyclamen 5
258 Cyclamen Leaf
Well you might be able to spot my current concern as you look through my sketches for the week, I make no apology. We are now camping indoors as things are packed away, my studio has shrunk to a basket and my kitchen to a cardboard box. Feeling positive but also apprehensive – will everything go smoothly? will the removal men arrive? will the money go into the right places? will I like my new home? will I have regrets? Time will tell I expect.
196 Clematis leaves
197 Packing up
198 Getting ready to leave
199 So much stuff!
200 Shame I have to take the ironing board
201 Guess what? More packing…
202 Every room boxed and ready
Life drawing classes drew to an end this week, I shall miss them. I feel I have really benefitted from the discipline, there is no place to hide when life drawing – everybody knows what a person looks like so it is easy to spot mistakes. Now with my quilt finished I am at a loose end sewing wise and have become drawn to the work of Natalie Chanin both the ethos and the style, so I am experimenting with the technique……….I just wonder if I have the hutzpah to swish around rural Suffolk in these ornate and marvellous creations – well I am now of the age when I can put two fingers up to everyone so maybe I just will! Mind you it will probably take at least a year as they are very labour intensive to sew.
Reverse Applique test
All this sewing has taken time from drawing but still keeping up the project, so here are this weeks offerings, very heavy on the day lily as they are such beautiful elegant plants.
182 Day lily
183 Day lily leaves
184 Lily
185 Day lily 2
186 Day lily 3
187-2 Life Drawing
187-1 Portrait
188 Perennial sweet pea
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!
140 Quilt Wrestling Corner
141 Shed and water butt
142 Hebe
143 Grumpy Laser
144 John resting
145 Rattan Chair
146 Chives
