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Friday 3 April 2015

Still life, glitter and inspiration

Painting attempts

An attempt, over two weeks, to capture that blooming jug and a couple of small bowls.  

Still-life

The jug is passable, the green bowl looks as if it has had too much to drink, and the terracotta bowl  with an inside glaze bears an unfortunate resemblance to a chocolate-iced doughnut.  Still, I've achieved a lot more than I thought I could in these 10 weeks.  I will be continuing with this course next term.  Other artistic indulgences this week, a viewing of the Gift Horse statue, which was rather thought-provoking.

Gift horse

A visit to the Cinderella exhibition - very glittery and Disney, but in contrast, also containing some restrained, rarely-seen drawings of the original Cinderella animation by the Disney artist Mary Blair.

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Interesting reflections around Leiceser Square

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and then a visit to the Mall Galleries to see the annual exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, on until 11th April.  

Some lovely work here, and probably showing my technical ignorance again, I was surprised at the depth of the colour in many of these paintings.  In the gallery, Chris Forsey was giving a demonstration of how he paints, always interesting to see someone who is an expert in their craft make it look so easy.  Artists / paintings  that caught my eye were: Deborah Walker's magnificent seascape; George Large's geometric depictions of people at for - helped that one was called The Quilt; Patricia Rozental's "Pretty Maids All in a Row"; Naomi Tydeman;Tim Gustard's extraordinary still-lives; Richard Slater; John Glover's "Colin's shed" a view he has painted in several media, and in this show was pen, ink and watercolour; Steven Alan Griffiths' momentous books; Marjoie Collins' dazzling colours; Elizabeth Nast' series on commuters, particularly " Commuter crush"; Lillias August, particularly "Nine scissors".

In the adjoining gallery, a series of work by the winner of the Threadneedle prize in 2014, Tina Jenkins.  A set of intriguing and disturbing works using a technique that might only be used by her,   

2 comments:

  1. That blooming jug is looking blooming good!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You may criticise your painting but I wouldn't dare! I agree with Benta! Sounds like you've had a busy time aside from that, though. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

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