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 -

Drawing Tuesday - Natural History Museum

Because I knew I'd be missing the session, I did some work at home beforehand.

First, crumpling a brown bag into an "instant sculpture" of a fantasy creature - a relative of a chicken, perhaps?

(The second attempt, the reverse side, was less interesting - not enough contrast!) I went on to copying the green-eyed tiger from the "Animals in Art" book (by Jessica Rawson, 1977)  that came to hand,  and adding the eyes from some other more or less realistic animals in the book -

Tiger by a torrent, painted by Kishi Ganku (1756-1838);
hanging scroll, 169 x 114 cm

Other contributions -

Janet B splashes out with colour!

Sue's preserved fish

Carol's fluorites

Judith's collection of feet

Joyce's whale skeleton, seen from above

Janet K - Guy the Gorilla

The homework was to draw fire. Some of us are still trying, or thinking about it, and some of us have done it -

At the moment all participants are nameless, to encourage the laggards (including me). Here's a starting point ...

Woodblock Wednesday - lining things up

Just when I thought I might almost be ready to print, a proof of the blocks cut so far caused me utter confusion - why weren't they lining up?

 I made temporary kentos with masking tape and moved them around again and again -

 ... and then decided to wait till help was nearby.

So, in class I took a methodical approach, using rubbings. First the key block several times, then add each of the  other blocks separately -

It seems that the half-block (green and blue - not the final colours) is the one that needs recutting.

Another block with more pots needed cutting first, and I got started right away. I'd taken some of the stripes out of the key block and put some stripes back into this final block -

Just a little cutting left on that block. Hoping to print next week - I'll do all the layers on one print at a time, in case the registration still needs adjusting.

Drawing Tuesday - Imperial War Museum

Climbing the stairs, I got this view of a Spitfire and a nice ledge to rest the sketchbook on -

... and on second glance got a better idea of the proportions; the carpentry maxim "measure twice, saw once" comes into mind -

Others viewed the plane from other angles -

Janet K

Janet B

I also found the "roof terrace" with its view of the cupola and various finials -

as did Janet B, who - as her "warm up" - fit a larger view onto a smaller page -

Judith had drawn from a WWI source - this is the aftermath of Ypres -

 and more recently, Irish leaders Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley -

Najlaa found the Whittlecoach motif, and a poster showing a textile panel that hung in the home of Constance Markievicz, the first women cabinet minister in Europe, elected to the parliament in 1918 -

Carol was intrigued by a jeep with all its equipment on the outside -

Sue paid close attention to a wrecked Japanese plane -

Extracurricular activities -

Najlaa printed with big leaves on cloth

Janet K stitched a tiny rug for a doll's house, based on a rug that
had belonged to her grandmother 

World palindrome day

In the UK today (2nd February) is 02.02.2020 

In the US today (February 2) is 02.02.2020

In some other parts of the world they write 2020.02.02 - but country by country, date formats get complicated!

(And if you look at how your digital photos are automatically labelled, you're likely to see something like this

IMG_20191027_083039.jpg  )

This article tells you more, and has asked for readers to submit palindromes. This one has to be a made-up story - but it's a good one -

My mate with Aspergers has just completed his PhD, as it happens -- on palindromes.
We now call him Dr Awkward.

Studio Saturday - heaving a sigh of relief

"Last year" I signed up for a ceramics course at Morley, "Exploring the ceramic surface with texture and colour" - four Saturday afternoons. A good way to ease back into the ceramics studio, to get re-enthused, I thought. 

And it promised well in terms of content, inspiration, opportunity. I hadn't taken in that there were two classes, a two-week break, and two more - which makes for some good thinking-time in the middle.

But I haven't grasped the nettle with any enthusiasm. There is a mental block, kinda like the one I get when faced with wiring diagrams. Yet it could be so much fun! I'm kicking myself for being "lazy"....

Thus it was was much relief that, preparing to go to the penultimate class, I realised that today is the second non-class week and it doesn't happen till next Saturday. But the knock-on effect is that I won't be able to attend the final class, on account of needing to be at my son's wedding. 

So I feel lazier than ever about this course. 

Never mind, here's what's happened so far.

First week - piddling about with over-complicated mark-making on tiles -

 ... much more fun to experiment with the leftover bits of clay -

 ... including this "water flowing over the scholar's rock" thing (or perhaps, "back view of wavy hair") -

 These went to the kiln -

Week 2, these came back from the kiln -

and these tiles had been kept back for further development -

 I'd looked for some things that might make interesting marks and enjoyed mucking about with this one -

Printing coloured slip onto tiles was fun - here's a (yawn) coordinated set - yes yes, it does look like a textile....

 These are a bit freer -

As for the sigh of relief, the free afternoon leaves time to make a panful of brownies, and do the hoovering, and go for a walk.