Looking at a Teddy Bear through a glass darkly.

Rocked up to life drawing class this morning to find that the organizer has quit and we were left to our own devices.
Not all bad, an excuse to stare at my fellow artists and scrutinize each one as they sat for us in 15 minute 'bites'. I was luckily spared the scrutiny.
One downside is that we will no longer be provided with the splendiferous morning tea/lunches that we had come to expect.
Apparently this group have been meeting for many years and until recently had organized themselves, so it is back to the old days and 'bring a plate' (that quaint Aussie expression which has confused many immigrants who didn't realize that there is meant to be something ON the plate!
So, a morning of 15 minute sketches, apologies for the lousy photography!
                                                                   Half sheet

Quarter sheets

 

I have come to the conclusion that I am quite good at drawing teddy bears but terrible at drawing trainers (running shoes)!
For the technically minded I used a big fat 2B graphite stick, a rather blunt instrument but allowing freedom to wobble about.

I have not been idle...

Lately my life has been hijacked by the need to keep up stocks in the craft shop where I sell my stuff. I'm not complaining mind you but I have been working my little fingers to the bone.
I love doing this because it keeps my aging hands nimble, also, I actually feel the need to produce stuff (that's the residue of my Protestant work ethic ) and by sitting in the shop every Saturday I get a lot of feedback and contact with the people who come in.
The shop is one of a group situated in a now defunct  department store in the the dead heart of the city. An enterprising soul thought that it was such a waste to see all of those empty shops and actually did something about it , thus RENEW Newcastle was born and crafty folk and artists can use some of these empty spaces for a peppercorn rent. The new shops and coffee shops (life is nothing sans coffee) have brought new energy to the city precinct but of course it will only last until it has achieved its aim and the wreckers ball moves in to make way for apartments in the revitalized area! Catch 22, (thank you Joseph Heller).
Just a taste of my wares!
Flanders poppy pins (try saying that three times quickly). I though these might be nice given that it is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of The Great War, remember that one?, it was meant to end all wars, sigh.
Next April 25 also marks the 100th anniversary of the battle of Anzac Cove, a defeat that has come to symbolize bravery and sacrifice and is deeply embedded  in the Australian and New Zealand psyches.

Next are a few little birds I have been working on for Christmas ornaments.

Next, a little gathering of Echidnas, freely extrapolated from a Little Cotton Rabbits pattern for hedgehogs ( longer snouts, more spiny yarn.

It is so nice with the warmer weather to be able to sit on my lovely balcony and work, I am blessed!

The unforgiveably lazy artist.

Art has taken a backseat to survival for the last two weeks.
I remember visiting the Beppu Hot Springs in Kyushu a few years back and it was appropriately name "Boiling Hell", I think the weather makes Singapore nearly eligible for that title. I did manage, between fainting and moaning, to dash off a couple of etegami in response to a call by Debbie Davidson to incorporate packaging materials in a card. There have been some clever and witty submissions but the only interesting stuff I found was the wrapping paper around some art supplies I brought at the Straits Art Co. I did buy a bamboo pen and that made me think of all of those wonderful drawings Van Gogh did with either a bamboo or a reed pen. So by way of an homage...

And reflecting my somewhat jaundiced view of the world at present, a card inspired by a window display of large silver and gold dandelion heads, this priceless quote from Mr Darcy ( I wonder if "A pair of fine eyes" would make my resolve crumble so easily?)

Happy snaps.

Is there anything more annoying than having to look at the 2,000 holiday snaps on someones smartphone?
So in the interest of brevity if not wit, here are a couple of happy snaps from our long planned trip to Singapore.

Chinatown all decked out for the Mid Autumn Moon Festival, all of the flowers are lit at night.

Number two son lives and works in Singapore and we see him so seldom what with his busy lifestyle, the expense of the required Business Class seats on the plane and my precarious  and unpredictable health. It follows then that the Trip has been planned, put off and fantasized about for two years (since the last one in fact) I fear this may however be my swansong, the heat really plays silly buggers with my lungs and it feels like the ante room to Hell. It is a lovely place to visit but unless one dashes from air conditioned car to air conditioned mall, one is a pitiful soggy mess.

A charming chap I met in the corridor outside said son's office.

Another charming chap I met about 51 years ago (otherwise known as the Prof or my Minion).
He did a sterling job of fetching and carrying and making sure that I made it home in one piece, he's a keeper!

Do not adjust your sets...

Normal service will be resumed as soon as the technicians come back from lunch! Yep, back in the slammer again but on the mend. Had a brilliant week, was doing well on the Out and About program then whammy! A common old cold, bummer!

A fishy tale.

Fun and games at the residence yesterday. A visit to the Fish Markets to buy a fish and then home to 'tackle' the Japanese art of Gyotaku or direct printing from fish!
Two granddaughters, one son and one poor deceased model (the fish) and we had a whale of a time. Surprisingly for a first try we produced some not too shabby prints. A couple of little minnows were not quite as successful as models and had to be told to flake off...okay, enough with the puns, now the pictures!

  

 

Excuses, excuses....

Cant think of a single believable excuse to account for my absence from blogging for over a month but moving on, it seems that life in the city has me in its clutches and the ease of getting to and fro has made me a gad-about! Continued success with sales of my "stuff" at the little gallery shop where I volunteer every week has kept me busy, sock monkeys, rabbits, foxes etc are in warm-ish demand so that keeps me occupied of an evening.
Living here also has given me a new lease on life as far as protesting goes (shades of the 'sixties), today I am joining the ranks of other disgruntled voters to protest the new conservative government's meddling with our health care system. They will be requiring the poorest patients to cough up $7 each time they visit a GP. Seven dollars is not a lot to most people but for some it is the difference between ease and worry. Like Mr Micawber said "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.” I hope this government's days are numbered as they have reneged on so many promises.
I am really enjoying getting out and about with the Urban Sketchers and yesterday we met at a very picturesque spot (Newcastle abounds with them), a row of very grand houses. My sketch however relocated the house to Hobbitown but it was fun to do all the same. After the meet it was lunch at the beach, hot chips! a rare treat , eaten in the windy but warmish shelter (20 degrees C, I can't believe it is mid winter).

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.....