It's all a matter of proportions...(warning: nudity. Ooh er!)

My lifedrawing group this morning had a fantastic model but I was having a great deal of trouble getting the proportions right. Big head in one, big legs in the next. Part of the problem lies in the fact that I now have to draw sitting down, kind of a worm's eye view, not conducive to accuracy. The model is usually posed on a stage so that helps a little but I do wish I could get it right. Standing and drawing has become impossible, I start shaking after about ten minutes and that's the day over.
There are some great sketchers in our group and it is difficult not to compare oneself with them, it is always helpful to come home, photograph and analyse the drawings at one remove to see what you did wrong. Weird isn't it, I can see the errors in a photo but not on the page. I wonder if this is a common thing? Certainly in etegami as soon as I have scanned one, spelling mistakes jump right out at me. I think that the concentration of doing the thing makes your left brain take a holiday somehow while the right one, the arty, farty, bad spelling , can't seem to measure accurately side, is in control. That's my theory anyway!

Hope and recycling..

Regular readers of this blog will perhaps have noticed the little bottles containing origami cranes which I amused myself making during my last incarceration.
At the time it struck me it would be a good idea to exhibit them in the hospital where I have special status as a "Frequent Flyer".
The combination of the origami crane which is a symbol of hope, long life and healing and the little bottles which had contained the intravenous antibiotics I was having at the time, seemed irresistible.
Discussions with the lady who organizes such things were fruitful and the result was a little exhibition in one of the internal window galleries that line the main corridor of the hospital.

All of this activity, far from healing me means I have been visiting Doctors to address the problems caused by folding, drawing, knitting, carving, swiping the iPad, etc...Carpel tunnel, trapped nerves and bursitis! Ahhh, old age! Rest they say!!! I simply do not know what to do with myself if I don't do any of the above. Daytime TV would atrophy what I have left of a brain, Oh well there are always audio books I suppose or maybe I will join the Cafe Society and watch the world go by.
BTW the tags on the little bottles say HOPE, TIME, HEAL, LOVE, LIFE. The smaller bottles are less than an inch high.

New directions...

While I have never been one to take direction very well, if I do strike out in a different one I do it with a vengeance.
Having decided to take advantage of this beautiful weather (somewhat akin to "The Medieval Warm Period") and being of reasonably sound mind and limb, I have been doing a lot of outdoor sketching and life drawing which has in turn gotten me out of the house. I almost feel the need to capitalize that statement, for years my kids have viewed my hermit like existence as a case of agoraphobia, not taking into account the fact that with limited energy, the job of raising kids and running a house took priority over coffee mornings and the other social pursuits that nice middle class ladies indulge in (tennis anyone?).
Well...I have been to two coffee mornings this week! (admittedly one was morning tea in aid of cancer research) and I find them to be a very strange and discomfiting experience. I took along my sketchbook to the first one and happily drew my soy latte and Portuguese tart before eating them.
This morning I sketched a local landmark very near my house (1,800 steps away to be precise, I counted them) the "TUFF'N UP  Boxing Gym, Don't get Hit, get Fit". I drive past this little rusted corrugated iron shed almost every day and the sign still makes me chuckle.
Not particularly happy with the result but here it is anyway. I did feel the  need to draw it as I suspect it will soon make way for a new development in this growing area.

There have been other directions but they are subjects for another day.
I do need to get my etegami, blogging etc back in the picture, I am feeling the lack.....