My good friend Graeme Johnstone invited me on to Southern FM this morning to chat about my upcoming exhibition at Tacit and the previous Spoons exhibition held last month at AGRA.
You can hear the interview for the next 7 days on the Southern FM website HERE. Click forward to 41:20 to hear it from the start of the conversation. It was a great chat with Graeme and we talked about my methods, concepts and way of working. Hope you enjoy listening to it!
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What memories of caravan adventures do you have? This was the question posed last year by ArtAviso artists' website. Artists were asked to respond to the theme of 'Caravan' and produce a work for a joint exhibition to be held at Tacit galleries. After Covid delay the exhibition is now due to launch on March 10. Read about the concept HERE and see the artists participating, including myself.
And you know what also is fantastic about this exhibition? It opens at the same time and same venue as my '20,000 Leagues'! So now you have a double reason to come in to Tacit and see some great art!
If you cannot make opening night on March 10, why not join me for a Meet and Greet on Sunday, March 14 between 2 and 4 pm at Tacit? Take in both shows and come have a chat.
Week 4 of Term 1 'Away with the Birds' was drawing the bird from a taxidermy model. As we cannot bring a caged bird into class this is the next best thing to drawing a living model.
Why draw from life? Why not just use photos. IMO, working directly from life is the best way to learn about your subject. You begin to see in new ways and notice things that you had not seen (or are not able to see) in a photograph. Studying the real thing informs you in ways that a photo cannot - how the changing light falls across the subject, its form and structure in a three dimensions allows you to observe it from different angles and details are more easily observed. Even a rather moth-eaten stuffed bird like this kingfisher allowed the students to intensely study the bird in a more holistic way than a photograph.
In between assisting students, I worked on my own sketch of the bird. Using a non-reproducing blue pencil to create the initial structure lines, the form was build up using Staedtler Mars Techno 2mm pencils in HB, 2B, 4B and F. This is on Art Spectrum Smooth Drawing Pad paper, 300gsm. A crochet needle was used on the head area to indent prior to adding the graphite to allow for the little white feathers this bird has across it's skull. A bit more than an hour to complete to this stage.
Check out John Muir Laws website on drawing birds: HERE
...oh, and the ant was just a random visitor who strolled across the page as I took the photo. 😁
Here we go again. Let's hope this Lock Down is short and sharp, finished in the 5 days promised and we are all back to class on Thursday! Better safe than sorry, and we have managed to get in 3 class sessions this term.
Week 1: For those watching but not in classes, we have been focusing on birds, their anatomy, structure and detail. In our first session we looked at the skeletal form and each student was given photo handouts of many different types of bird skeletons and asked to create a well rendered observational drawing of between 1 and 5 of the images supplied. An actual chicken skull was also available for study and life drawing.
Week 2 saw us drilling down and intensively looking at bird feet. Many artists avoid bird feet, hiding them behind a leaf or in grass because they do not understand the structure. This session was aimed at investigating the different types of feet and observing how they differed from each other. Special attention was paid to size, configuration and nails/claws. Students were offered some 20 images to work from.
In Week 3 we looked at bird heads, concentrating on different types of beaks and how the eye was positioned in the head. Again, 20 or so images were supplied. Note all images used in class except the skeleton images were from my personal library of photos.
All of the above drawings were done using graphite pencils, primarily F, 2B and 4B in a Windsor Newton A5 200gsm Visual Diary. Hints and tips were supplied by a variety of books I own, but most importantly John Muir Laws Guide to Drawing Birds. An excellent resource that I highly recommend. Visit his website for great information, books, instruction, videos and print outs: HERE
So, our next class was to be drawing the bird whole using a taxidermy model. Hopefully this will happen in the next week or so, but if you are looking to explore more in your bird investigation until then, I invite you to draw the following in your sketchbook. This is the wing and tail feathers of a Boobook Owl that sadly had a fatal encounter with a car. This piece of roadkill was found out near Bathurst and collected by a licensed wildlife carer who allowed me to photograph it.
If you think I have been a bit quiet on this blog recently, you are correct. I have been working hard to finalize works and arrange framing for my upcoming solo exhibition at Tacit Galleries. You can preview the works here - and if you wish you can pre-purchase before the opening via the Tacit website.
Hopefully there will be a 'Meet and Greet' day arranged on the weekend of March 13/14, but this will depend on our current issues with Covid 19. I will update here on the blog further news as it is confirmed.
Those of you on my mailing list will receive a copy of the below invitation in a few days, but I thought I would use this opportunity to give everyone advance notice here.
Hope to see you there!
