The curtains were drawn but the Ektorp sofa was real.
With apologies to Spike Milligan and Ikea. And a shout out for Plumbs, who supplied the curtains.
The Curtains were Drawn
Category: Art
Wakefield Centenary Tea Towel
Looking for a paint rag this afternoon, I picked out this relic from the Wakefield Centenary celebrations in 1988. Alan Brook was in charge of promotions at the Wakefield Express. I’d previously produced a Wakefield calendar so I stuck to the same landscape format throughout, drawing each on location around the city.
I think that Alan’s original intention was to produce a calendar too but for some reason that never happened, so he suggested the tea towel instead.
He later used the same artwork, with a few tweaks from me, for some commemorative china for the Millenium. As I’d sold the originals in an exhibition, it never occurred to me to ask for a royalty. If I’d known that the Express would have such success with the range.
Barbara was driving with her mum near Hornsea and came across the pottery where they were made. The man there said that I must be making a lot from them, as they were such a success he had to keep producing more.
If only I’d known that they’d turn out to be bestsellers, I’d have asked for a royalty!
Chimney piece
We walked across Thornes Park to B&Q before the retail park got busy with Christmas shoppers this morning and tracked down those last few essential items for my Redbox Gallery Night Before Christmas display including an LED spotlight to pick out the fire and adjustable legs for the base board.
For the final coat of paint for the fire I thought that I’d be limited to whatever tester pots of emulsion they had in stock, but the – helpful as always – B&Q assistant pointed us in the direction of the Valspar colour range.
For £3.00 they were able to mix us a 236ml test pot of matt emulsion from the Valspar range, which will be more than enough for my mock-up fireplace. Using the swatch cards, we checked out ‘Prague Purple’ and ‘Crown Jewels’ against the rough sketch on my iPhone and decided the punchier one would give the greatest contrast with the yellow flames in the fireplace.
Small S-hooks to hang the Christmas stockings from were the only items we couldn’t track down at B&Q, but we came across them in Dunelm’s, next door but one on the retail park.
Fireplace
The Night Before Christmas fireplace for the Redbox Gallery show is taking shape with the hearth and the chimney breast to add. I’ve been able to recycle some of the foamboard from last summer’s Addingford show. I’ve already half a roll of decorator’s masking tape, along with al- weather clear tape for the critical joints, so hope that will keep the structure intact during its time in the phone-box.
I’ll go for more of a dark heather colour for the final coat of paint, so that the yellow of the flames will stand out more in contrast.
Christmas Creatures
There isn’t room for all that we’d like to include in our Redbox Gallery Christmas show, but I think that we could fit in a few Christmas Creatures:
'T'was the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse . . .'
Screwed Up
Card for an engineering student. We met some well adjusted members of the Wing-Nut family last year.
Frantically Relaxed
As so often, something – perhaps the buzzard – put up the wood pigeons and they’re perching in the top branches of the two tall ash trees, surveying the scene, as if waiting for the all-clear. There are still patches of snow amongst the clumps of grasses in the meadow.
I was hastily drawing this on a busy day before popping out for an annual blood pressure check at the doctors’. The idea was the therapeutic process of drawing and tuning into the natural world would calm me down. It didn’t work! But they’re giving me a second chance so I’ll give myself more chance to settle down before my return visit next week.
It was more relaxing today when we were able to take the morning off to go to Blacker Hall cafe, giving me chance to draw the view from the cafe over coffee and cranberry scones.
There wasn’t time to add the watercolour so I took a photograph and added it later.
Cutting Corners
I’ve made a start on the fireplace for the Redbox Gallery’s Night Before Christmas display but I keep going back to my model to work out the details on the grounds that it’s easier to make changes there than it is when you’ve already cut into an A1 sheet of foamboard.
There’s not a lot of room for the armchair and table we’re planning to add but hopefully I can dovetail a couple of foamboard cut-outs into the two corners without obscuring the fireplace.
Navigation Walk
Drawn this afternoon at Navigation Walk, Wakefield, colour added in Photoshop.
Rusty Brown
Reading Chris Ware’s hefty graphic novel (really six closely related graphic short stories) is good for building up my biceps but I’m struggling with the one millimetre high all caps captions, some of them on coloured backgrounds so I’m calling on the opticians today to see if they can recommend some extra strength reading glasses, specially for reading Chris Ware graphic novels.
It’s clear enough when I come back to it in the daylight, so perhaps I should be thinking about improving the light that I read by.