Drawing Tuesday - Door Furniture

...aka "architectural fittings". Not just handles and knobs - there are hinges, letter boxes, keyhole covers, keyholes themselves without covers, gate furniture, locks, double locks. My outside door has what is known as a "London bar", installed after a burglary - if the yale lock is opened, the bar stops the door from opening fully. And knockers, don't forget knockers - these are always more interesting in other cities - I love those hands you often see in Paris etc. Draughty doors sometimes have those retractable curtain rods that carry extra insulation of curtaining. 

My favourite door furniture is house numbers, though sometimes they're not on the door itself, but to one side, or etched in the glass over the door - never mind, fair game just the same. 

If we were in a museum we might find some nice medieval door furniture - in the ironwork gallery of V&A perhaps...

From Joyce -  a decoration on a door in Cochem Imperial Castle which we saw on a guided tour while travelling along the Mosel, bckmin 2017. I don’t think it had any function, just kept the blacksmith occupied! 

From Mags - I went on a walk around the area of St Mary of Charity church in Faversham ' collecting' door knockers and other door furniture and drew from the photos in varying ways. The Fleur- de- Lis symbol is everywhere!

From Gill - Drawn from the local church.

From Jackie - observations from previous travels…how lucky we were… 

Door to hotel room Rajasthan..one time palace...    

Red Fort doorway  Delhi

Salvador doorway (Peru)  …i thought the guy might be considered part of door furniture….

From Carol - Some door furniture from Norwich Cathedral drawn when I was using (very) small sketchbooks

From Ann -  a church door which I found intriguing..ornate and decorative wrought iron. Like its heavy elegance.

From Judith - Intended quick sketches became laborious!

From Najlaa - Door in our area

From Janet B - I had a bracing walk around the island this morning to Christ Church but its door handles were disappointing. However I was determined to do some Tuesday drawing. So here is the cheerful number 23 from my front door and the misaligned lock from the seriously leaning shed. 

From Sue S - Here’s my door hinge sketch from Pic taken in Marrakech several years ago.

From me - making do with scrappy paper and a biro -

Drawing Tuesday - books

Books offer plenty of  observational drawing possibilities, open and closed, old and new, big or small, stacked or scattered or on shelves - and parts of books - bindings, covers, illustrations, the text itself. More imaginatively, consider artists books, books being read, or characters/scenes from (childhood?) favourite books. Other possibilities are drawing on books or in books or on pages torn from books (sacrilege!!). 

Or, make a book of the "sculptural object" sort ... have a google of the phrase "book object" to see some examples. Googling "book structures" might also give you ideas for working outside the confines of the regular sketchbook.

This little video for kids, showing how to draw a pile of stacked books was quite soothing to watch, but there's probably no need to watch the colouring in! 

Two artists who come to mind are William Kentridge, who drew trees on pages from an encyclopedia, and Fiona Banner, who - when not sculpting or using other media - meticulously copied the covers of books. 

From Joyce - all the sketchbooks I’ve used since I started coming to the Tuesday group in December ‘15. The one on the top is a continuous sketchbook which is why it looks like it might topple over!

From Judith - Sacrilege [to cut up a book]

From Hazel - I was lucky enough to visit St Kilda a few years ago where I was fascinated by the many cleits built on Hirta. I drew many of them (see photo) and when I got home decided to use my drawings and writings to make a small edition of 20 handmade books. I sold most of them to the St Kilda Club members. It was a labour of love! This is the cover and endpapers of my small book and pages from my sketchbook.

From Sue B - some of my books on bookshelves

From Ann - A couple of pics from a kids book I was creating on a course and a mixed media still life! 

From Mags - from Collage class at City Lit  with Simon English:   "Dinghy Ownership for the Non - Racing Man"(  by the same author " Dinghy Sailing for Boys - or girls") 

Bought for £1 specifically to alter, it still took a deep breath before cutting, ripping and applying lots of ink. 

From  Gill -  Three of my favourite art books.

From Carol - My drawing for the last couple of weeks has been exclusively to illustrate a new Duck, Tiger and Giraffe book in which they buy ‘unsuitable’ bikes online then have accidents and finally sell them to buy a tandem for 3 (whatever that is called). Here are some of the drawings (text still to go in) my fav is Tiger running to practise his first aid.

From Jo - "my contribution needs the 'covers' tweaking forward slightly so they come forwards butterfly stye, and it needs photographing sanding up so ther is a bit of daylight behind it"

Jo also sent "Artists in Crime", a "Shelf-Portrait" oil painting by Roo Waterhouse Art, the spines darkened by years of exposure to the light -

From Sue S -  found a book on Upholstery which l ‘defaced’ on on Simon English’s Collage course. Had mixed feelings about the wilful damage l inflicted. Looking at it laid pen for shapes & shadows was easier on my conscience. Caran d’ache & wash.

From me - That silly video about drawing a stack of books (see above) did get me going - I folded a paper in 8 and quickly put a book on each page, then made a couple of cuts and VOILA, a book of books!

I drew it in two ways - "writing" pencil position, and "drawing" position -

"No eraser allowed" was my own rule - part of the incentive to have a long hard look at tones and angles. Next time, more attention to contrast.

Drawing Tuesday - white elephants

 A "white elephant" is " a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of " -- and don't we all have one or other of those in our houses! Unwanted gifts from the inlaws; that expensive garment you've only worn once; the ugly piece of furniture that's been a family heirloom for generations....

"White elephant parties at the office are a relatively new tradition" says this video, which analyses a short story by Hemingway and goes on to consider "the elephant in the room" - both based on the size of the animal. These parties, should you be considering organising one, have rules... but elephants of all sorts and colours are welcome at Drawing Tuesday.

From Jo - a late arrival for the "hats" topic, equally applicable as "white elephants"! 

From Judith - A literal response. Drawing with a rubber. Adrian Villar Rojas and Miquel Barcelo white elephants.

From Hazel - a gouache painting of a white papier-mache elephant I painted for my grandaughter's birthday. The elephant now lives in her bedroom!

From Joyce - Here’s my tongue-in-cheek take on this weeks topic, “white elephants“! 

From Ann -  a collage of my Panasonic bread mixer which I had to have! My husband bought it for me some time ago as I was  keen to bake but after baking one loaf it has remained in the cupboard taking up valuable space! There are so many bakeries nearby! 

From Janet B - I managed to get rid of all my white elephants during the first lockdown so I, too, have taken a literal approach. It is also a “Blue Peter” approach as these are some I did earlier at the Natural History Museum. 

 

From Gillian - Drew over my page of bubble drawing for a free texture.

From Richard - It was probably 35 years ago that a friend of a friend gave us a Pither stove as he was emigrating. (The design, which evolved over the C20, is interesting in itself. They use anthracite which fills the upper part of the cylinder - its all cast-iron inside the stainless steel sleeve) and drops into the burning chamber where a cheering glow can be seen through the woven wire panel. My conscience was OK as I knew anthracite is the most efficient coal, with very little waste/ash. Then I thought I shoud look harder, and the corollary of the efficiency is the highest CO2 production of any coal, and for comparison, twice that of natural gas. Guilt! 

I had paid a lot for the replacement of one of the castings a couple of years back, so that fits the expense eligibility criterion. It is large, shiny, very much in the room, but cold and unlit this winter, so useless. 

From me - The packing materials for the family's house move included quantities of tissue paper, which I used to do my drawing in 3D. Method: crumple the shape, then wind round with strips of torn paper, held together with glue stick.

Rather like a medieval representation of an elephant?

At the time it was solely about making an object to fit the description, but looking back on the process I see it as a slice-in-time self portrait, starting with the decision to save and smooth and fold the sheets of tissue, then to crumple and shape some of it - the rescuer, always asking "what can we do with this". I discovered how easily it tore and how, with a little care, the width of the strips could be controlled, and had to decide whether this was important or not. Despite being torn, the paper was still strong enough to cope with some rough treatment from a dried-up gluestick. The "creature" was rough at the edges and its legs kept giving away; less of a representation of an elephant than the manifestation of an individual shaped by circumstance.

Drawing Tuesday ... hats

 What a variety of shapes and materials is up for grabs, from the practical to the fanciful, from those 1890s feather fantasies to today's ubiquitous baseball caps. From costly crowns to those knotted seaside handkerchiefs. 

From Carol - Hats belonging to Grandpa and little Isaac. I struggled with this one a bit as think I used a background too dark but decided to be a bit more fluid and less detailed. 

From Joyce - Here are my two winter hats, sketched with brush pens.

From Hazel - My knitted hat was drawn with dip pen, brush and ink.

From Ann - My husband's hat in watercolour and  just couldn't resist recreating  this portrait of Dorothea K by Holbein younger 1516. The hat headdress and masklike scarf were too tempting as so present day!

From Richard -  watercolour over pencilled bones and resisted the temptation to crisp up with ink or caran d'ache. 

I see the two-hats image - one on a Pilates ‘mini-ball’ - looks like a still from ‘The Snowman’.

From Sue S -  Here’s my sketch of a pretty bonnet shown @ the Sewing Exhibition @ 2 Temple Place Feb. this year. Drawn in Brushpen & soluble caran d’ache. Loved the embroidered pattern!

From Judith - Playing with Procreate again. Good time to remember ‘pussy hats’. Also William Wegman dogs.

From Mags - Watercolour of my  fleece winter hat , got lost amongst the stripes . 

From Gillian - My woolly hat drawn with a 2B pencil.

From Sue B - one of my straw hats…using hb, 2b, 4b, 8b pencils

From Janet B - Here’s one I did earlier, nearly fifty years earlier. It says on the back “main study” so I think it must have been an exam piece c.1972.

From Jackie -  a late arrival … famous tea party,(minus Alice…couldnt wait for her to arrive….) Pen and neocolour crayons..

From me - the teeniest sketch of the hat Freya and I found in the local charity shop. Often she doesn't like things on her head, but she enjoys wearing this beige "bear" hat -