Saturday 28 August 2010

The Horse Mural

Girl Friday and I are taking a break from building and fundraising for Art School Waihi to paint a mural for Ruthies animal farm. The mural is all about horses.

Girl Friday is here working on her very first mural, designing and painting the swallows that live outside the Animal Farm kitchen.
Initial overall design of the mural is lined in and two portraits of Holly the horse painted, one abstract and one realist
Girl Friday's swallows as we left them, unfinished, at the end of two days painting.

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Mother and Daughter drawings

Our model brought her daughter along to life drawing class last night, Samantha, who sat for me while the others drew her Mum.
I showed her how to draw tigers in her sketchbook first and then, when she didn't want to draw anymore, I did these wee portraits in Samantha's sketchbook.

Sunday 15 August 2010

Art School building: things my Mother never told me....

The first thing my Mother never told me about building an Art School is you need a separate building to build the Art School bits and pieces in -
Otherwise you will end up with your lovely print and paint and design studio becoming a carpenters workshop..


and the artist's lounge, life drawing room and bed-sitting room will become a dumping ground for furniture and paintings and frames and glass and stuff...


and the guest room will become a workshop crammed with a whole hardware store..

and the carport becomes an etching press manufactury and the Toyota (poor wee thingy) sleeps out in the cold and wet.
Work proceeds on the school and the funding and the new website and the planning of courses and accommodation for the coming Summer but all I really wanna do is build me a big shed and go hide in it.
A man-cave just for me where I can lurk, sulk, scratch me itches, pick me scabs and go feral to my hearts content.
Don't tell my Mother I said that..

Thursday 12 August 2010

Drawing Hair

I don't often draw or paint in the life drawing class I teach but last Wednesday our model showed up with her hair tied up in a bow and combed down tight with natural waves and a mass of damaged and dyed hair that she is growing out flowing down and over her shoulder.
I thought it looked very 1930's and I had to draw it.
I love drawing hair, for me it has everything that could be found in plants, sky, water in terms of shading, highlights and texture and also lines, lots of lines, straight, curved, entwined...
Hair draws me, so to speak, and dawing it seems sensual and satisfying.
Freudian? Don't know and don't care, all I know is I love drawing hair.....