Woodblock Wednesday - an outpouring of jugs

 There have been many "test proofs" - rubbings - and finally it's good enough to go. Checking various areas ... not perfect ... but good enough.

 Block 1 (background) and 2 (some jugs)

 Block 3 - more jugs, printed slightly darker, more indigo

 The final jugs are on the keyblock, printed in mostly black with some indigo -

 Colour mixtures noted -

Next I'll make a block with just the "white" jug, turn it into stripes.

Subsequently there are the flat areas - what colour? or leave them as is?

And with those issues sorted, various colours can be brought into play.

There's another block, two actually, not printed this time - the mouths of the jugs. I like them white, as is. Once that "ghost jug" has been accepted into the group.

Drawing Tuesday - V&A glass gallery

Some red glass from the gallery -

 I settled down with this view -

 ... and after a lot of looking, and resorting to a bit of colour, ended up with this. Adding the brown piece would have made for a better composition -

Sue did grander things -

Mags said she "went for quality rather than quality" but surely she wasn't serious! -

 Judith found shapes -

 ... and also made a more complex drawing, which she wasn't satisfied with...

Helen wondered whether this (communist-era) Czech glass was made for trade shows etc to compete with foreign wares -

 Jo's many pages included this cat from a chinese scroll -

 Joyce wanted to channel Chihuly - maybe not the rotunda chandelier this time -

 Carol found unusual blue glass, and an ornate glass -

 Meanwhile, in the V&A's Dundee branch, Janet B found a pleasant chair -

Extracurricular activities -

Judith's overlapping transparent shapes, based on last week's work,
 done on her ipad in Procreate

Mags has been doing daily drawing and making books with woven spines

Joyce used a tray cloth for a stitch sampler 

Last week Carol went to the Wallace Collection and
put together an interesting work

To Kew, for noble trees and spring flowers

 A book swapat the station, how civilised!

 Small plants in big pots at the entrance -

 Shy sunshine behind dark clouds, and the Thames running hight and fast after the recent rain -

 A hornbeam, if I remember right - possibly this - or maybe not! But doesn't it have wonderful twisty branches, and dappled bark -

 This is an elm, a tall one -

 In the distance, magnolia -

 Coming to the end of their flowering, the pale crocuses -

Woodblock Wednesday - have all the blocks been cut yet?

Didn't make it to class last week, thanks to illness, and this week was half term. So I've rather lost the plot with the woodblocks.

The previous weeks had been devoted to finishing the cutting. Then, testing registration with more rubbings. For speed I use the side of a fat graphite stick, and I love seeing the way the layers add up, in shades of grey -

Inside of most pots left white

Inside of all pots coloured

 The blocks on hand -

And on the back of the board with those three, another three -

The third one is at top right, and uses only the area at the top of the design -

Squeezing all the blocks onto one board is half the fun!

Drawing Tuesday - Wellcome Collection

The "Play" exhibition started with a display of all 24 of Froebel's Gifts, structured play/learning materials invented by a 19th century early-childhood educator -

Froebel's original set (1837) included six activities

... more complex activities were added later

Beloved toys were in glass cases, including a Stieff bear that had had exploratory surgery to find out why his growler wasn't working, sewn up with red thread. His owner went on to become a vet -

A trio of toys, by Jo

Surgical bear

Pumpie, recently made famous by being restored at the V&A
(programme available till May on the BBC iplayer)

A Lego dog, before the firm made bricks

Joyce focussed on the simple Froebel blocks -

In other parts of the building, Sue tackled the glass model of the Giardia organism -

 Judith spent time with the glass implements in the Henry Wellcome display -

Most of my time was spent looking at the exhibition, which included a charming child's drawing of figures with their shadows, presented as an animation in which the shadows gradually appeared, from the figure down, rather like this -

It drew my interest to the shadows of people watching a video

drawing in the dark

I tend to shy away from human figures so this quick sketch - and the won't-hold-still children in a play area - were a bit of a breakthrough, small as it seems.

Extracurricular activities included life drawing along with "that programme on the telly" (available till early March) -

 ... and Joyce made a Beavers shirt for her grandson's beaver toy -