Drawing Tuesday - little and large and/or Brunei Gallery

One group went to the Brunei Gallery, which is showing oriental certamics untill 11 December. 

Those of us who stayed at home had the theme "little and large".

 

From Janet K - The large puppet I made for my kids a long time ago. The finger puppet was a sample I made for an ad for CLIC Sargent - now known as Young Lives vs Cancer. For the shoot I made a big puppet which was shrunk to appear as a small puppet in the ad.

Earthenware tomb figure of a roaring lion. Tang Dynasty about 700-750.

From Sue K - An interesting exhibition of ceramic wonders. Worth the visit & viewing lovely elaborate/unusual pieces.

Here’s my sketch on theme of ‘little & large’ porcelain vase & stein cup sitting together. A complicated pattern on the cup was hard to get accurate in the shade!

From Joyce - This is an incense burner, Ming dynasty,1628-44. It was interesting to look in detail at how the rocks are painted contrasting with the spikey pine tree.

From Jo - This is one of a pair of huge Ming 'dogs' in a gorgeous turquoise glaze; I went for this one because of the Gruffalo shadow! 

From Ann - For little and large...a watercolour of shells..big and little. 

From Judith - I came across this picture of a blue-eyed damselfly, large eyes on a little insect 

From Gill - A quick drawing with a biro in my left hand of a spider plant.

From Najlaa - Ewer and Basin /Koryo Dynasty 12 th century. From the web site of Brunei Gallery.

From me - These seasonal fruits came from a farm visit by the family - the large one was later peeled, chopped, cooked, pureed, and made into pumpkin pie

Drawing Tuesday - pots pans kettles (or Guildhall Art Gallery)

 If you've wondered how metal cookware is made - and I honestly hadn't, till now! - have a look at this short video about "metal spinning". The music is rather annoying, but some useful information is given - almost all metals can be spun, but aluminium and steel are best; there are tools for the automated lathe, and others for the hand lathe; it took 4 minutes to make the big pot (but no mention of how long it took to make the heap of cake tins and sausage funnels). 

Copper is treated somewhat differently . "The tooling itself is a two man job" - one man to apply the pressure, the other man to go back and forth on the work. It does seem to take a lot of strength.... very macho....

Amazing tools, very polished, so as not to scratch the pans. Fascinating, I thought!

And here's the Alessi bird kettle, which "paved the way for the American design style of the 1990s". Seems to be almost an ad for the company! Interesting that they had a competition - among architects - to design a unique tea/coffee service. The winner went on to design the best-selling kettle - 50,000 of them are made every year, even now.

This shorter video is about the manufacture - no history, no talking heads - and shows the Tea Rex kettle

Some of us met at the Guildhall Art Gallery, with its permanent collection and an exhibition, till 23 December, about Noel Coward.

From Ann - A jug pic!

From Najlaa - Ewer and Basin /Koryo Dynasty 12 th century. From the web site of Brunei Gallery.

Richard - Ducked out of the Guildhall trip - stayed at home for some work. Nonetheless could not resist a go at pots and pans; very po-faced but enjoyable exercise to practice watercolour.

From Judith - View from Guildhall drawn with very water soluble pen.

From Sue K - ‘Three Nifty Nats’ 1926 after a painting by Gluck to promote ‘On with the Dance’. Done whilst listening to a lovely medley of his songs. 

From Jo - From the Guildhall Gallery: this is a very inadequate attempt at Lucy Jones's The Thames 1982. I found I didn't have a turquoise pencil with me and its not a colour you can 'fake' from primary colours - as I discovered.

And this is a shot at a John Virtue landscape 2003-2004. One black pencil!

From Carol - Found in an antique shop – does anyone know what this is - samovar? ewer? pitcher? from the east? It was only about 10 inches high so not sure if it was a full sized version.

From Gill - A quick memory drawing of my pots and pans.

They have all been packed away while work is being done in my kitchen.

From Janet K - Madame Arcati. I chose this costume because there was a bench nearby and a film about Noel Coward's houses with Coward singing. A lovely way to spend the morning.

From Janet B - My first "live" drawing in a long, long time. Noel Coward’s chair. 2B pencil and no rubbing out. 

From me -  Some items from the Noel Coward exhibition -

and a colloquium of kettles -

Drawing Tuesday - apples and pears (or Crossrail Garden)

Some of us went to Crossrail Place roof garden at Canary Wharf (https://canarywharf.com/open-spaces/crossrail-place-roof-garden/) ; for those not inclined to travel or be (sort of) outdoors, the topic was "apples and pears" - which is cockney rhyming slang for stairs. Or else it's fruit. Or "pairs" could be anything - a pair of pears, possibly. So, plenty of scope.

This 21-minute video shows watercolour used for three simple fruits - apples, pears (and plums) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRIwfBBWVJM&ab_channel=Nianiani 

Though Cezanne probably used oils, not watercolour -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Basket_of_Apples

From Janet K - My drawing of a canna.

From Gill - Just played around with blot drawings. I prefer the bottom two on the left.

From Janet B - what fun it is to sit quietly drawing on a Sunday afternoon. Conference pears and pink ladies

From Ann - For the theme apples and pears...stairs...here is a watercolour sketch of the stairs to the entrance of St Paul's.

From Richard - My trite conceit required artificial light in our hall on this overcast day which was not very clever of me. Fun anyway.

From Sue K - Crossrail garden was awash with autumnal trees & plants. Here’s my sketch of a clump of cannas - maroon & green leaved. Such good shaped leaves. 

From Jo - All I had was one melon! Coloured brush-pens, glorified felt tips really.

From Joyce - I haven’t sketched apples and pears but autumn leaves from my local woods! They inspired me more...

 

From me - Rear view of Michael Lyons' "Shepherd of the Sun", 1994 - from the vantage point of a convenient bench

Drawing Tuesday - "my bathroom" and/or at Maritime Museum

 Bit of a mixture this week! First, the group who went to the Maritime Museum in Greenwich; after that, those who drew at home.

From Sue K - Here’s my sketch from the Maritime Museum. There was a heavy downpour which kiboshed thoughts of sketching outdoors! One of the wall of figureheads - not sure if it is Nelson given the laurel headband & one eye closed.

From Judith - View north and south from the covered walkway to Queen’s House Greenwich.

From Jo - On the whole I prefer the earlier fishing weights [see below] - its easier at the kitchen table!

But here is today's crop from the polar section.

A badly-stuffed arctic hare:

 

A real toy - an explorer's penguin:

 

From Janet K - A crowd of figureheads. A little ambitious to try to draw so many in a short time.

From 

From Jo - I was working on the 'bathroom' topic. Thought I'd send it anyway since its vaguely 'maritime' as well. I have a load of old, lead fishing weights on my bathroom windowsill. I got them from a charity shop a few years ago. I liked the 'sci-fi' look.

From Ann - Here is my offering this week but it's the toilet! 

From Gill - Wobbly sketch of my bathroom.

From Joyce - Here’s another wobbly sketch! A continuous line drawing of our bathroom cabinet behind the mirror.

From me -  for some reason we have a surplus bathtub outside. I drew the taps one balmy summer morning. Pigment pen.