Cambridge

Posted by kestrelart on

Three weeks ago I went to meet people gathering near Cambridge with whom I identify and whom I had only met through social media before now. The Friday night and then the breakfast on Saturday morning have, I think been transformative. Driving back, the thoughts and memories merged with the light over the road and started to form into this abstract which I have subsequently painted in oils.

This is how it started.

Ink

Posted by kestrelart on

At the life drawing session, the model was once again Sophie who holds the most amazing positions and whose animated features still shine with humour as we draw. Previously I have worked in charcoal pencil and conte crayon. Today, I worked in pen and ink, grabbing the wash off the nib with a water brush. The first 2 minute poses were drawn free but subsequently I built a construction in pencil.

Sophie has beautiful tattoos. For the first time I tried to at least reference these in the longer drawings.

Sax

Posted by kestrelart on

Last week I went to my first live gig since lockdown. Lara Jones opened. Lara is a saxophonist who builds tracks that incorporate sounds she hunted down and recorded, from the noises of the railway station to her wife’s heartbeat. This was in St John’s Church in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham. I was drawing in the dark and some distance away. A diminutive fiigure in that setting, she cast huge shadows.

Lara was opening for an hour long performance of Pendulums by Andrew Woodhead. This is a sumptuous piece in which a six piece jazz band improvised, synchronising with pre-recorded animated visuals, depicting shifting geometric shapes representing the mathematics of campanology, and with eight church bells sounded by ringers in the belfry.

tall and slender does not fit A4

Posted by kestrelart on

This week the model was willowy, so different from the solid man last week whose bulk naturally filled an A4 page. The page was mostly space. By the time we reached 20 minute poses my charcoal and conte pencils were blunt and I was trying fine lines with the edge of conte blocks. Mostly I could not wrap my brain round how to draw her. She had a lively curious face, holding a pose while her eyes darted across us. I wish I could have captured that.