ACEOs and Urban Trees

This week I've been working on drawings of urban scenes.  The drawing above is called Souper (it's the word on the poster) and it's based on a photograph I took in Birmingham just after christmas.

I cropped the photograph quite severely to print out, then cropped it again on paper for this drawing.  I plan to do a second drawing with the design extended upward, following the trees in their journey alongside the windows of the modern building.  I deliberately kept the drawing as minimal as possible and used dip pen and coloured acrylic ink.


I'll be posting another couple of my tiny ACEOs on Itsypics soon.  One of them is a drawing I made from a photograph I took at Burnham-on-Sea of the Low Lighthouse  (also known as the Lighthouse on Legs).  I love walking on Burnham beach when G manages to drive us up there for a daytrip.  I love the space and the light bouncing off the wet sand and the mudflats out to sea.

There are people all around but there's still space enough to be alone.

Itsypics

As well as working on a variety of work in progress, including this pen and coloured pencil drawing of a local public baths (now closed down) seen from a side street, based on a photograph I took in Autumn 2013...

...I have also been working on the tiny drawings I plan to attempt to sell via auction at Ebay.  I have a few snowdrop drawings finished, they are very simple fineliner pen and coloured pencil drawings, here's one displayed on a tiny easel I purchased on-line.  The easels are really sweet, only a few inches tall, and just right to display the miniature drawings which measure 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches, regular ACEO measurements.

I have also started a series of seaside scenes.  At the moment I've embarked on a series of lighthouse drawings.  I've long had a fascination for lighthouses, for all they symbolise on so many levels.

These 2 images are the pre-coloured and coloured state of a drawing I've made of Old Flamborough Lighthouse.  The drawing is based on a photograph I took in August 2003 while travelling up to Northumbria on holiday.  It was a very windy, chilly late summer's day.  The lighthouse is a chalk building and purported to be the oldest in England, built in 1669.

 I've set up an Ebay ID to sell my ACEOs, I've called it Itsypics and you can find it here.

NEW PROJECTS

I've been experimenting with ACEO format again today.  I quite like the compact size, in the same way that I used to like compact poetry.  It gives you the opportunity to be both obsessive and/or brief, whichever the spirit takes you.

I made a few drawings of a Christmas Pointsettia 4 years ago, and really enjoyed exploring the textures and blousiness (word?) of the Pointsettia leaf shapes with a fineliner.

This year I bought another Pointsettia, a lovely peachy coloured one from Webbs of Wychbold, with the aim of drawing it. 

So these tiny experiments are the first drawings I've made of it.

I also made a quick (half hour or so) study of my winter work coat.  I managed to kick myself up the unmentionable at last and began a project I have been ruminating over since the autumn.  More on that if I ever, when I ever, dot dot dot.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! 

These are the first drawings I've made in 2015. 

I've been looking at ACEO's (Artist's Cards Editions and Originals). This tiny format for various media and styles of art started life as ATC's (Artist's Trading Cards) - small playing card sized pieces made originally to swap with other artists. They developed into ACEO's which can be sold as collectable pieces, both in the form of prints or original pieces. 

They can be found on sale at Ebay and Etsy. I've been experimenting with making pieces to this format 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches in size. 

It's my little project for the new year. My first pieces are a way of thinking myself out of the post-Christmas gloom and groping towards those first bright torches of late winter - snowdrops. 

Brutal as the stars of this month,
Her pale head heavy as metal.  (Ted Hughes)

PENNED PETALS

Apart from a few teething problems (glue not liking foam board) my exhibition doesn't look too bad.  I've had some very nice comments from kind people and I feel that at least showing my work in a public place within the community entitles me in a small way to call myself an artist.  For the time being, at least.

My next challenge is to use what I've learned while making the exhibition in the right hand cases (all those pieces made directly from life) in the development of my work as a whole.  I enjoyed using a bolder line, and also the simple collages, both of which I will try to utilise and develop in the work I create next year.  I also enjoyed using colour more, and again I want to build on this.

I still love using a dip pen and plain Indian Ink though, my biggest problem is how to do everything I want to do in the little time I have to do it all in!

On Tuesday I took a trip to London and was inspired by all the fantastic work held in the National Gallery.  I visited some old favourites.  I gazed in rapture upon Gainsborough's The Watering Place which just takes my breath away.  I want to live in that painting!  I really enjoyed sailing the icy arctic seas with Peder Balke, and being in the presence of 16th century Italians painted by Moroni (my favourite was this poignant painting of a child).  I visited the Rembrandt exhibition at the National too, but it was too busy to make any real connection with these works, incredible though they are.

Penned Petals

My exhibition finally is up at Wolverhampton Central Library and it can now be found in the glass display cases at the top of the stairs on first floor.

I had a few teething problems, mainly that I had used foam board to mount the labels and photographs I am displaying.  These all went up lovely, I've attached the wall mounted ones with velcro on the back of the foam board.  But as I locked the final case I noticed the paper on which I had printed the title label of a couple of the pieces was peeling away from the mount board!

I tried a quick fix, but if this hasn't worked by Wednesday I'll re-do the labels on card and re-fix them. 

I'm dreading turning up and finding that I've created a snow globe effect with all my carefully printed labels fluttering about behind the glass like snowflakes!

I haven't taken any photographs of the exhibition yet, hopefully I'll get these done on Wednesday, but in the mean time I have published a digital catalogue of my exhibition which you can view by clicking here.

 

These are the plans of the 2 cases which I made throughout the time I planned my small exhibition.  I set the material out in the back garden or on the landing, marking the case with string, and then drew up this plan of left case (above) and right case (below).  As it turned out the left case worked perfectly but I had overestimated the space of the right case and had to adjust the display of the material a little.  But it all fitted into the cases in the end.

View digital catalogue of Penned Petals here.

Penned Petals - Monday 1 December to Friday 12 December 2014

Hopefully after weeks of planning my small exhibition will be held at Wolverhampton Central Library from Monday 1 December to Friday 12 December 2014.

You'll find it up the lovely spiral stairs in the 2 long glass fronted cabinets between the Learning Centre and the first floor library.