March turned out to be the month that we finally returned to cafe sketching – so far. I must say that I am a little bit rusty and am having to re-learn some of that flow I had previously. The fact that we have drawn every week for a month is quite a development in itself.
So without further ado…
We found ourselves in an odd situation the other day. We went to see a major travelling exhibition, Shakespeare to Winehouse, which has come to Australia from the National Portrait Gallery, London. We knew that there was no photography allowed, but I was taken aback when the security guard asked me to put my pencil away as there was no drawing allowed in the exhibition either.*
Apart from being very annoyed I was at rather a loss because sketching is my favourite way of recording exhibitions. After going through the exhibition we beat a quick retreat to the coffee shop where I furiously wrote notes on the paintings/ photographs that caught my attention. Did I mention that you couldn’t even take notes in pencil in the gallery?
However, after we got back home, it dawned on me that I could at least try and paint some of the works from memory – it’s hard to keep a determined artist down.
This is a first for me and I can’t say that I had prepared myself for the experience. Nevertheless I managed two acrylic studies, neither of which give a terribly accurate rendering of their sources, but it was fun. (And yes, I do know that I can download all the paintings online. It was just more fun doing it this way).
If you are interested in 15 minutes of relaxing video you can watch me paint this study by following this link.
When is a texture a pattern and vice versa? In my latest gelli printing video I play around with printing textures onto cloth. I spent a lot of time mucking around with a piece of ratty old hessian I found in our garden shed, which only goes to show that it doesn’t take a lot to amuse an artist.
Here is the short promo I did for the longer video.
https://leonieandrews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/wp-1647641491457.mp4
The full video can be found here https://youtu.be/SwOWt6OQS3k
I told you about my video exploits in a recent post so, when we had our first visit to the coast in over 18 months, I couldn’t resist taking my filming gear (my smartphone that is) as well as my sketchbooks.
It is a lovely landscape to explore. We even did some kayaking on Lake Durras, which might also make it into a video yet.
My latest film shows you some of the lovely scenery on the dunes and adjacent coastal forest at South Durras Beach, on the coast of South-Eastern Australia.
My lock down project appears to have become filming and learning to edit video footage from my smartphone. It is certainly a challenge as it turns out I can’t find a local adult education class for the editing suite I want to learn – Da Vinci Resolve- however with the help of YouTube I am muddling through. I am trying to locate a good online class instead.
In the meantime I am having fun exploring the video options on my phone and then seeing what I can do with it.
I tried to load a video here but apparently my pay level doesn’t allow for videos on WordPress 😪. I may never make it to Hollywood but I am having a lot of fun.
Oops I should be better at marketing. I forgot to say that you can find me on YouTube by searching for ‘leonieandrewsart’ or following this link.
leonieandrews 