The Joy of Journaling was unknown to me until about 6 months ago. Before then, the only type of art journal I used was a sketchbook full of my latest on location drawings. But these were not for evolving, testing and solving. So what made me start keeping a different type of journal; what changed?
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These days there are all sorts of places for exhibiting art, outside of the traditional gallery. Pop up Galleries, Art Fairs, Open Studios, Pubs and cafes etc are all possibilities. But it’s not always easy to know what is going to work best for your work. There are definitely pros and cons, and often there appear to be positive and less positive experiences for any one of these! Therefore, I am taking the approach of keeping an open mind and just going with what feels right.
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I think I’m an organised person, but I’m not sure that it comes naturally! Perhaps its one of those ‘Eat Your Greens, they are good for you’? My 2020 Art Year plan has come about through two motivations:
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Over the past 6 weeks I have taken part in a second on-line course called Find Your Voice (FYV) with Louise Fletcher. This is a follow on to the Find Your Joy (FYJ) course. You can read my review, including my results, from FYJ here. The purpose of this second course was to continue to focus on developing our own personal voices. But with an intention in mind and looking at 4 key painting principles: tone; composition; colour and mark making.
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I’ve delivered a wide variety of exciting commissioned illustration projects throughout 2019. These include: a number of building-related commercial pieces. A wedding in Cheshire. Several key reportage (visual journalism) illustration projects and a book cover! Although I have shared some of these projects in dedicated blogs, this blog is an overview of some of these illustration projects.
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Over the past 10 weeks I’ve taken part in an inspiring on-line painting course: Find Your Joy with Louise Fletcher. After taking a short taster course in August I was really intrigued and motivated to do more! This isn’t your usual painting course!!
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In September I was fortunate enough to spend a week on the west coast in Wales. The weather, starting to show signs of autumn, with a nip in the air and colours of change, held up. I spent most days walking ( the Pembrokeshire coastal path) and sketching. I love autumn!
Manchester Histories, in partnership with Manchester City Council, commissioned me to document ‘From the Crowd‘ in a series of Reportage of Peterloo 2019 illustrations. You can read more of my reportage work here. This Peterloo 2019 production is a musical theatre piece, co-produced with Walk The Plank and Brighter Sound and involving a large number of volunteers (Laurels). These volunteers then supported members of the public to deliver this impressive collaborative performance. In the words of the production’s Creative Director, Evie Manning (CommonWealth): ” From the crowd is a dialogue between 1819 and 2019. We’ll be remembering those that protested and lost their lives at Peterloo and those whose lives today are affected by different oppressions”
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In a previous blog, I explained some of the approaches I am taking to my mixed media collage works. You can read it here. Recently I’ve been working on two new mixed media collage pieces. They are based on a series of Oldham sketches. It’s proving to be a bit of a challenge to say the least!
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Over the last couple of years I have started to create mixed media collage art. In the last few months I have started to evolve them in a different, less literal direction. This blog post reflects on this new start point.
This blog is about the types of sketches I create and their different functions.
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This last week I took part in the oneweek100people challenge, promoted through the Urban sketchers social media sites. The idea is that you post your people sketches on line each day and try to hit 100 in the week. This is the first year I actually completed the task and it got me thinking about the importance of continued practice, continually learning and honing skills. This is important both to improve my own art but also to be a good teacher. In two weeks time I will be starting my own series of sketchbook sketching day workshops in my studio.
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The final blog of this 3-part series is about the future direction of my collage work. You can read parts 1 and 2 here. . My collage exploration through 2018 has been informed by my illustration and ‘sense of place’ fascination. I am now keen to immerse myself more in the media as a way of loosening myself up . I intend to become more exploratory and intuitive in my approach.
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In this second of 3 blogs reviewing my collage progress in 2018, I am going to discuss collage materials and media. The first blog sharing my works from this year is here. I am not claiming to have developed these techniques off the top of my head. Those interested in collage materials will no doubt of tried and used many of the elements I will discuss. However, all of the work I am presenting on my blogs is my own and the final results represent my own way of seeing and creating. It’s important, once you have an understanding of techniques and your own areas of interest, to follow your own path. There is plenty of opportunity for that with collage!
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Over the last 12 months I have started my journey into collage creation. It has not been without its ups and downs. I am used to drawing from life, using pens, ink and watercolour. However, I also crave texture in my visual work. The materiality of things, their physical form and the feel of their surfaces fascinates me. I am interested in how that materiality is connected with creating a sense of place. In addition, composition and colour are important aspects of my visual studies. Mixed media and collage in particular, are therefore obvious media for my exploration. Moreover, they enable individuality and an opportunity for endless experimentation!
In this series of 3 blogs, I’m going to share some of the inspirations and approaches I’ve taken so far. I will also discuss some of the techniques and media that I’ve started to explore more recently. The aim is that these additional approaches will help support a particular uniqueness and ‘own voice’ to my work.