Continuing on the theme of using found materials, I’ve cut up a garden cane and a piece of left-over dowel that I’d used for stirring paint to make the pillars supporting the spire for my model of St Peter’s Church tower.
Pillars
Month: March 2023
Spire
My first day – my first ever day – with a very faint positive test for Covid-19 and I’m taking the chance of being grounded to catch up with my cardboard model of St Peter’s Church, Horbury, spire for my John Carr tricentenary exhibit in the Redbox Gallery.
Barbara’s brother John unfortunately caught covid at the hospice but, as of this morning when we made a video call to him, he wasn’t showing any covid symptoms.
A6 Art Bag
My new a6-size sketchbook bag, an ‘Expand’ bag from a stall on Leeds Market. Pens were beginning to escape through holes in my previous ‘Trespass’ bag, which had become a bit overloaded. There’s a bit more breathing space in this one.
Nestbox Wars
It’s that time of year when blue tits and sparrows fight it out for who gets to nest in our various nest boxes. Last year the blue tits raised a brood in the sparrow terrace at the back of our house but after a lively dispute between a pair of sparrows and a pair of blue tits over the blue tit box in the rowan tree in the front garden, the box ended up with no occupants during the breeding season.
History is repeating itself with the blue tits franticly trying to repel the sparrows at 8.30 this morning but the sparrows managed to force their way to the box and, as it turned out, despite the narrow dimensions of the brass ring around the entrance hole, they were able to squeeze in.
At the moment it’s sparrows who are taking most interest in the three-nest hole sparrow terrace but it’s early days and the blue tits could easily be the ones who eventually take possession.
Hands
Drawn with the ‘Real G-Pen’ in Clip Studio Paint.
Model Making
My model of St Peter’s Church spire is taking shape, glue gunned and masking taped together from strips cut from cardboard cartons.
My theory is that making a model will help me understand John Carr’s architecture. I need the model to have a handmade look, so I’m doing the whole thing by eye, working from a line drawing that I made of the church thirty years ago.
These were drawn on my iPad Pro in Clip Studio Paint using the ‘Real G-Pen’, as was the drawing of the sofa below.
The model making was coloured using the lasso fill tool, the sofa and mug using the Rough Wash Watercolour brush.
Drawing with Florence
“Do you like your drawings?” asked Florence, aged 6, as she looked through my sketchbook. Difficult question. Obviously I like them enough to keep trying but there’s usually something that I think I could have done better, however looking through the pocket sketchbook that I’ve been keeping while we’ve been visiting Barbara’s brother John over the last three months, I’m pleased that I have taken the opportunity to draw whenever it was possible.
I drew the tower then asked her: “What do you think should be on top of the tower?”
“What about the sculpture you drew on the library?” she suggested.
She drew the finial that she’d seen when looking through my sketchbook earlier and you can see that she’d taken in the whole shape, with its concave base and drawn it pretty accurately.
She also soon got the hang of using a Pentel waterbrush. Not sure that I would have gone for the pillar-box red for the colour of the building but she certainly knows how to mix greens.
I should have asked Florence whether she likes her own drawings. Children are often confident when they first start drawing then as they start to become more visually aware of the world around them, they can get frustrated and sometimes give up. But I’m convinced that Florence has the focus and determination to work through any blocks she encounters.
The Moth
I’ve just read How to Tell a Story, written by advisers from the New York, now worldwide, storytelling group The Moth. There’s a lot of useful advice on how to tell a compelling story but one tale stuck with me for the wrong reasons.
A teacher is helping a young child progress her observational skills through drawing a self-portrait. Instead of praising the drawing uncritically she looks out some more accurately coloured crayons. I would so have appreciated some input from teachers as I struggled with flesh tones. I could see that Caucasian skin wasn’t pink, or yellow or any other colour amongst my set of crayons. I remember my excitement when I came across a ‘flesh-coloured’ crayon in the local art shop and I bought it to help me with the comic strips that I drew (I’ve since learnt that you could easily use all the colours in a watercolour box to come up with a complete range of ‘flesh tones’).
The girl telling the story was horrified when her teacher offered her used crayons from an old tin. The trauma lasted into her adult life. What she wanted was a shiny brand new beautiful crayon.
I’m so glad that Florence immediately realised the possibilities of the much-battered pocket watercolour box that has traveled with me through America and Europe and more recently through hospital and hospice. Old, battered and occasionally a bit grubby can be good.
Glue Gun
The latest weapon in my armoury, a small glue gun. For my cardboard architectural models PVA adhesive proved a bit awkward to use, using a scrap of card as a spatula.
When I’m using the glue gun I find it difficult avoid the hot glue if I’m holding on to a tiny strip of card so I’m applying the glue to the main model then adding the strip of card to the tacky glue. It works well for me.
John Carr Anniversary Display
It’s a bit of a challenge fitting the life and works of Yorkshire architect John Carr into a phone box but I’ve got all the elements here:
- Portrait
- Brief biography with some key dates
- Quotes, such as ‘I always drink 7 to 8 glasses of wine with a meal . . .’
- Models of a selection of his buildings
To speed up constructing the models from cardboard cartons, I’ve invested in a glue gun. For think corrugated cardboard like this I find a stout pair of scissors more useful than a sharp craft knife.
A Toad on the Towpath
We helped this toad across the towpath on the narrow strip of land between the canal and the river. It was heading in the direction of a marshy field, the Wyke, on a meander of the River Calder. Also crossing the towpath, a larger female toad with a small male clinging tightly to her back.