Royal Drawing School Exhibition

All the work in the show is online, but I wanted to see it "for real" before looking at it on screen.

Exhibition overview, with sparse yet rich landscapes by Bobbye Fermie in the foreground -

The first thing that struck us was the frequent use of oil pastel (that difficult medium!), in combination with other media -

Christabel Forbes

 These small "polaroids" of a cemetery balance light and dark so well -

Lottie Stoddart

Another interesting use of dark and light -

Firle by Tim Patrick

 The layout on the page -

Quarry Woods, Kate Kirk

 These were large works, and although the subject matter is a bit ...dark? non-descript? ... I'd be very very happy to be able to produce - to be able to concentrate on, and bring to a finish - work like this; stunning ...

Geraint Evans

I'd also be very very happy to eventually make long landscapes with pen and ink -

Bobbye Fermie

 Compelling composition of birds in museum cases, "Horniman's Bird" by Bobbye Fermie -

Sketchbooks on display, some on tablets -

 Not just this year's exhibition, but those from previous years, are online ... do go have a browse, but make sure you click past the thumbnails...

Poetry Thursday - A History of Rain by Marc Hudson

Usnea substerilis (via)

A History of Rain
Marc Hudson

So you arrive in the old country of rain.
The road sign says Mist, Jewell,
Vernonia. Woodsmoke
is rising against the rain
so slowly, you wonder if time
is passing, and did the alders
have leaves this year? Walk on
through a covered bridge and the sun
pours through a thousand knotholes
in lasers of smoking light.
When you emerge it is raining
as it only rains in the first chapter of Genesis,
a rain without ambiguity and guile
a rain with pointed arches and high clerestories
where the aquiline features of saints
are smoothed away like a child’s
in sleep. You discover
your vocation: you will write
the history of rain, you will set down
on usnea and moss the lineage of mist,
the martyrdom of clouds. You will record
the resurrections rain accomplishes,
its infinite extension and seeming absence,
as if it fell to no purpose
but to elicit meditation,
the pause of the scribe before the window,
transparence of a mind
given over to rain

From Afterlight (1983)

Found here. Usnea is "a lichen of luminous green that thrives in the clear air [and] brings colour to the woods even on the greyest of winter days."

Some recent exhibitions

A sunny day in January, perfect for getting out and seeing something

A list of things seen, mostly just before the shows closed, in no particular order, with clickable links for the curious or procrastinatory (the links often contain short videos).

Panorama, drawings at the Courtauld; also Soaring Flight: Peter Lanyon's Gliding Paintings ("the extraordinary interior life of the sky").

One and All: A voyage through sight, sound and sea (Tania Kovats, Owen Sheers, Martyn Ware; with film by Benjamin Wigley) - seen in rooms under reconstruction at Somerset House, and available online at nationaltrust.org.uk/oneandall

Tintin at Somerset House (nice use of the window device)

Prix Pictet at Somerset House, east wing

Faraday-ish

Faraday's Synaptic Gap, an exhibition by Rick Myers at the Poetry Library and Courtauld Library

Liotard at the Royal Academy (an illustrated history lesson!)

from the video at royalacademy.org.uk

White by Edmund de Waal in the RA Library ("the white was a way of focusing and concentrating on things, of taking away the extraneous")

Between the Land and the Sea at the RA (Murray Robertson, Marion Leven, Fiona Watson, )

Susan Hiller at Lisson Gallery - good to see move along the lines of "Dedicated to the Unknown Artists"

Fabric of India at V&A

A "Gewitterbild" - made by lightning, with a little help from Floris Neususs (via)

Lightworks: the art of the photogram - some of the artists: Hans Kupelweiser, Floris Neususs [Gewitterbilder], Werner Bischof, Richard Caldicott

Giacometti, The Artist's Mother (1950) (via)

Giacometti: Pure Presence at NPG - "everything changes into a form that is taut and intense in a highly contained way"

Drawing Tuesday - Museum of London

My choice of subject was this "pottery graveyard", laid out under the floor. I drew some little sections onto luggage labels (why? because they were in with my pencils) and then set to work on the entire thing -

 adding a couple of these "committee staffs" from the mid 19th century at the last moment -

and then adding a background at home -

With some time to fill, I added two of the civic committee wands, which are in the same case as the badges for the livery guilds. Below in the case are badges; they were introduced in 1768 for identification - or perhaps for pomp and glory? It's the livery guilds who elect the Lord Mayor of London (not to be confused with the Mayor of London) -

 These wands are from the mid 19th century -

On the left, the wooden shaft is painted with the words: 'The Rt Honble Francis Graham Moon Lord Mayor 1854 Jas Anderton Esq Secretary'. The museum website reports of the third from left, "The staff is related to the presentation of the freedom to Prince Albert on 28 August 1840. The London magazine, charivari, and courier des dames: a Proteus in politics, a chameleon in literature, and a butterfly in the world of bon ton recorded in 1840: 'Prince Albert has received the freedom and clothing of the Fishmongers' Company. Rather "scaly," we should say'."
Sue S had been in the cauldron room - (snap! - been there, done that, compared our results...)

 A closer view of Sue's wooden forms and their shadows -

As she said, it's easy to get lost among them. And there certainly were a lot of shadows, shifting with the change of light from the large-screen video.

Joyce' mermaid from the golden state coach -

The coach was commissioned in 1757 for the Lord Mayor's show, which still happens every year in November. At our previous visit to the museum, in November, the coach had been removed for re-use. The coach is a perfect example of Rococo extravagance; its decoration includes both mythological and real creatures from Neptune and Tritons to sheep and lions.

Marina found the auroch (these wild oxes are now extinct) - and some medieval keys (and much more) -

Among Sue M's "trophies" was the graffiti'd wall of the gaol -

Mike's pages included the lift from Selfridges, which was installed in the department store in 1928 and designed by Edgar William Brandt, a French ironworker. It was removed in a refurbishment in the 1970s -

Janet B was pleased to find two horses (attached to the Lord Mayor's coach) that stood still long enough to be drawn -

Fabric and photo archaeology

Every now and then you need to rummage in a box that's been unopened for years. I have a few of those, and tackled on recently.

A 1.2m square of delicious furnishing fabric. Keep.

A much-decorated bit of fabric. Use for ceramic dipping.

The back - better than the front?

Braided organza strips? Why? But they might be interesting for ceramic dipping...

Destined for Project Linus ... one day.

This I love - impromptu stitching. It might become part of my Drawn Threads project.

The back. It's about 18cm square.

Pulled on the bias, the stitches do interesting things.

And then there's the box of photos. The many boxes of hard-copy photos, sitting quietly, patiently in a corner. Among them, these "industrial" ones, augmented by the playmo guys...

Art I like - Sarah Cawkwell

Sarah Cawkwell's work often represents textiles -

Cutting the Thread, 1993

Drapery 2006 (relief sculpture)

Squares for Refugees 2010-11

Loose Weave 2011

Sometimes she stitches buttons (or wool or textile) onto or into the paper -

Gravity 2007

Her work is about the repetitive minutiae of life and the female condition and all its contradictions.

See more of her work at sarahcawkwell.com

Elephantitis (north London)

This was a very overgrown hedge, so the story goes, and the yard, being hidden, was being used for various nefarious, anti-social, disturbing activities. Rather than cut down the hedge entirely (and reveal the dilapidation of the building?) the council brought in a topiary artist, who created these wonderful creatures.

Piddling about with drawing (1)

In the wake of my tutorial in the Extended Drawing course, and over the break, I've been trying to spend about 10 hours a week actually "doing drawing" - sitting down at my table (the one with the cosy radiator underneath) and having the radio on and just doing something. 

The one I'm happiest with is this -

A3 size, it's an amalgam of sketchbook work from the Museum of London and the Kircaldy Testing Museum. First I traced the bale-lifting tools onto a sheet of detail paper, through which I could see the original, with the idea of filling in the background with ink. Well the ink spread where it shouldn't have, so I gave that up and used a light box (it had been lurking on a shelf for quite some time, becoming invisible) to trace them onto cartridge.

This involved choosing just some of the tools in each column - and then the composition looked a bit sparse. Riffling through the book turned up some interesting shapes found at the Kircaldy Testing Museum -

and once those were added, the page looked like this -

I used white wax crayon on the metal shapes, inking over them to knock them back a bit and let the bale-hooks come into the foreground -

It's a bit of a jumble, and there are compositional lessons to be learned from that. Even though it doesn't hang together conceptually for me, I feel I've made something "new" and taken the sketchbook work further, at last.