Drawing Tuesday - "animal magic" or Brunei Gallery

 For those not meeting at Brunei Gallery, the suggested topic is "animal magic". Used to be a tv show of that title, anyone remember it? Here's a classic installment from 1967 -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds_zoOD_8FE&ab_channel=treffynnon19

Anything to do with animals is grist for the mill this week!

From Ann - A magical cat called Casper....still miss him after 5 years.

From Carol - I went to the Brunei and really enjoyed just working in ink for a change. This is ‘The world inside the mountain’ by Dong Jinsheng. 3 crows included (does that pass as animal magic).

From Jo - This is a ceramic animal (deer?), decorated to look like stitched fabric and - this is the magic - if you pull its red, felt tongue you get a self-retracting tape measure! It has FOREIGN stamped on its bottom and is fairly hideous, but I couldn't resist it in some long-forgotten charity shop. Its about 4 inches high.

From Janet K - Inuit sculpture drawn at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art a few years ago.  Spirit carrying a fish by Nick Sikkuark. Bone, fur, antler. Made about 2000.

From Joyce - Here are two Wood ducks and a Mandarin duck at Kelsey Park,  from a photo I took a few weeks ago.

From Judith - Inspired by woodcut ‘Morning Mist’ at Brunei Gallery exhibition of modern Chinese woodblock prints.

From Najlaa -  I just finished this fabric owl panel with wadding and machine stitch.

From Richard - For some reason I'm reluctant to draw from photo's but it seemed the best option this time. We have a low-pitched lean-to shed with a corrugated panel roof. It has become a green roof almost entirely without interference. Three weeks ago we found a fox asleep on it.

From Sue K - l love the starling murmurations - l used a freeze frame found on the internet as reference. 

From me - "The guys" live on the top shelf of Freya's kitchen (that her daddy made for her). The changing population includes bears, rabbits, pigs, dolls (handmade by grannies), and at the bottom of the crowded heap, an emu.

Drawing Tuesday - umbrellas and/or Maritime Museum

For those not going to the Maritime Museum, the topic is umbrellas. "Let a frown be your umbrella" - who said that?

Bing Crosby sings "Let a smile be your umbrella" here - lots of smiles, a fair amount of rain, and one umbrella.

Umbrellas have been around for 4000 years, first used as parasols. Here's a short history, and this image is from that site

Did you know that there's a National Umbrella Day? February 10th.

From Judith - From the Maritime museum: Aafigure for ship Bulldog and a few Admirals

Ann - My grandson with his umbrella..using colourways of a Japanese print

From Carol - Here are 2 figureheads from the Maritime Museum.

From Janet K - I found these cocktail umbrellas while reorganising a kitchen cupboard.

From Richard - Two watercolours of a big brolly we bought in a downpour panic in Southwold, years ago. I've really enjoyed this.  Still learning to speed through the detail and blend those blues.

From Sue K - Here’s a sketch from a pic l took when we stayed at Essaouira in 2012. A memorable holiday!

From Najlaa - Umbrellas.

From Jo - This is a panel of decoration from a blue-and-white bowl my great-grandmother used to keep her Mint Imperials in. I marvel at the tiny umbrella!

Poetry Thursday - "Otherwise" by Jane Kenyon

 

Otherwise

Jane Kenyon - 1947-1995

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

Jane Kenyon, "Otherwise," from Collected Poems. 

via https://poets.org/poem/otherwise

Drawing Tuesday - tiny things and/or Pangolin Gallery

 The exhibition at the Pangolin (near Kings Cross) is a group show of sculpture, using nature as inspiration and as a source of material. Those who drew at home focused on tiny things.

From Janet B - Vivien Finch and she brought her collection of miniature quilts and miniature beds to a quilting retreat I attended recently -

From Carol -  some tiny things from my treasures for children box

From Janet K - For tiny things I drew aerial roots on my spider plant.
 

This bronze sculpture [from Pangolin Gallery] is called Dagon by Abigail Fallis. 

From  Joyce - I sketched Porpoise-Evolutions 3 by Steve Dilworth. It’s made of bronze and sterling silver.

From Judith - Tiny things. Artist Tom Friedman piece seen at South London Gallery in 2004 and the feet part of Steve Dilworth sculpture ‘Three Herons’ at the Pangolin Gallery.

From Najlaa - My box of tiny beads.

From Sue K - I settled on a brooch, which was my mother’s & held a decorative Chinese lacquer design which got damaged. I felt sad about this & replaced the lacquer with a random pattern of hand beading. 

From Ann - This is a collaged piece of tiny tiny shells found on a beautiful beach in Mauritius

From me - my tiny "money plants", rescued from being overshadowed. Brush pen and sumi ink in A4 sketchbook - they're larger than life!

Drawing Tuesday - "from an old sketchbook"

This week we can plunder the riches in an old sketchbook - gosh what to choose - it's a chance to find things that still resonate, and to update them, perhaps freshen them up, whether that's through using a different medium or stripping the image back to essentials and reworking it entirely. Or using just a small thing as a starting point. Or combining items from different pages. 

From Ann - A couple of watercolour sketches from 2007. Derbyshire moors from hilltop near village of Eyam. Happy memories.

From Janet K - A sketch from several summers ago. Decided it needed a background. 

This is at the Ontario cottage we rent every few years. Cottage grass is nothing like a manicured English croquet lawn. We put one of the hoops on a slight rise which also adds to the challenge.

From Joyce - This is seaweed I drew in the Natural History Museum in March 2016. I’ve now added colour, inktense pencils.

From Mags - This  study of ' Johannan' by Ronald Moody from Tate Britain  in Nov 2019  stood out  - used Pitt calligraphy pen and 0.1 pen  to draw the  woodgrain  and then shading in pencil.  I loved drawing it so much I went back after lunch to draw his ear! 

From Sue B - A 200 year-old apricot tree in Tuscany in 2018

From Carol - A tiny sketch done at dinner Lake Garda Italy 2016 – a first attempt at refracted light. I was annoyed when the waiter took it away before my drawing could be finished but now Margaret you have given me an opportunity to revisit and finally finish it. Original scanned and printed off enlarged to colour.

From Sue K - I spent s good part of the morning trying to locate the yellow autumn leaf sturdy which I did in January 2019. I went thro’ all my sketchbooks to no avail.

This did involve a fair bit of clearance while I was at it! Turning over a new leaf so to speak!!

Some stencil work dabbing with a sponge & flicking paint off a brush to get the effect on the earlier one.

The second version was done quite recently - I thought to make further use of the stencil, with some lovely random striped Japanese paper grinning thro'.

From Judith - Sketches from 2017 into cutouts. 

From Janet B - I did this Japanese shadow puppet in the British Museum in January 2017. I photocopied it on to drawing paper and then coloured it in. I can never use colour in museums as I can’t cope with juggling different pencils while balancing on a sketching stool. I need a table, a comfortable chair and space to spread.

From Richard - For last November's theme of ‘legs' I drew my own, plus table legs. Here are my feet again but in my very warm old Afghan hut shoes.

From me - It started with the little stripey bag, too pretty to throw away. I'd just thrown away an unused tree drawing from a woodblock printing project, inked onto newspaper - retrieved it and cut it out, got the glue, and turned the cutout over. Even better! Onto the background and into the current A4 sketchbook it went. In that same sketchbook are various drawings, made with my small selection of inktense pencils (often without water), of trees in Finsbury Park. The first was done in July 2020, after the first lockdown lifted and we were allowed to just "be" in parks again.