My Blog
20.11.2007

Welcome to my Blog page.  This is something new for me, I've not done anything like this before.   Just bear with me and we'll see what transpires.

I'll start by telling you of an art workshop I once attended.  A local art group that I belong to invited a professional art tutor to one of our meetings . He brought with him a photograph of a friend and gave us all a copy to work from.  He handed out the photograph so that each student received it up-side-down and gave the instruction that that was the way we were to look at it for the rest of the evening.    We drew our portraits COMPLETELY UP-SIDE-DOWN..

If you have not done so you MUST give this a try.  It really works.  You DRAW WHAT YOU SEE not what you think you see.

At the end of the evening session all our drawings were placed along the wall for a critique.  Without fail, everyone's drawing showed a portrait of a smiling man.  Not only was his mouth forming a smile but his eyes were smiling too.

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My attempt at drawing up-side-down.

OK, so it's not perfect and it could do with some more time spent on it, but it was a reasonable likeness and I was pleased with my evenings work.
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If you decide to give it a go, make sure you don't look at it the right way up until you have finished the work.

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18.11.2007

Three years ago we put up a lean-to style studio in the garden - just a small light weigh affair but it was just ideal for what I needed it for.  Well, this week the wind here in Scotland has been pretty fierce and today we found that two of the acrylic windows have been blown out, one was bent and buckled, the other had to be retreived from the other side of the garden.    We really must re-enforce the whole building next year or we risk losing more than just the window

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12.12.2007

New to my web site - I will soon be adding ATC;s .  Artist Trading Cards are becoming very popular in UK, they are individual works of arts that measure just 2.1/2 by 3.1/2 inches.  They are never sold only given to a person or swapped.  Just to give you an idea here is a small sample of some recently completed.    Watch out for more coming soon.

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13.12.2007

Well, I, and 12 others from one of our art groups have just spent a lovely day at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. There was an exhibition of Joan Eardley and we have all come away fully inspired to making works of art ourselves.  We travelled to Edinburgh by bus which, in itself was something different for us.  The bus took us right outside the door of the Gallery and the first thing we did was head for the cafe for a coffee.  We took our time to visit the many rooms showing Eardley's art from her very early days up to the time she died in 1963. 
Afterwards we stopped for a bite of lunch in the Gallery then made our way back  - the bus warm and comfy (except when it hit all the potholes in the road) sending us sleepily on our way home.

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18.02.2008

I have just finish the first part of a portrait painting course and finding time between the hall decorating to get some practice work done.  The picture of Don (on the right) shows an oil painting I have just completed.  My fellow members of my art group tell me it is a very good likeness - I am pleased with the result myself.

My small collection of ATC's is growing - I have about 40 now from various States in the USA, Finland and several counties in the UK.  Of course, for every one that I have, I have had to make and send back the equivolent and more.

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13.03.08

Its been a busy week so far, I have started to revamp this web site so please bare with me.  If you see any bad links or errors please let me know.    I have included a clearance page which I will let run for a while, these are paintings that are taking up much needed room.     I'm still busy on the redecorating front.  this time I am tackling a bedroom that has/had built-in wardrobes and, my are they built in well.  They seem strong enough to hold the house.

I am pleased with the new painting I did for the newly painted hall.  You can see it on my art work page - it's called 'Storm'.
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14.02.2008

Well, there has not been much time for art work just recently because we have been busy redecorating the hall and passage.    We have stripped off old wallpaer, put on new textured paper and then painted it.  Although I say it myself it is looking nice and light and fresh now.  All we need now is some new furniture to complete the transformation and that will be coming in a couple of weeks.

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portrait of Don
09.01.2008

I got back yesterday from a two week Christmas break in Essex.  Iain and I stayed with my sister and her husband and, of course, we saw other members of the family as well.   Before we went I had made a journal to take down for a grand daughter.  She is 10 and was already familiar with keeping a journal but we both had fun and spent a day, first going to the Hobby Craft Store to buy some art materials then we sat and did some drawings and text designs for the book.  I think I enjoyed it as much as she did.

Checking through the mail when we got back from Essex I found that my ATC swaps had arrived.  Two from Texas and 3 from California.   I am getting quite a collection now.

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