Another challenge…

Lockdown has created all sorts of online activities in all walks of life: out of necessity freelance people in the arts, theatre, cooking, teaching, yoga, singing…. the list is long and varied, have had to find new ways of earning a living until life gets back to normal. In this respect I think the internet has really come into it’s own offering so much diversity to those stuck at home. Though for me life hasn’t changed all that much because I’ve never been at a loss for things to do, and our summer season is over for the moment, I have discovered an online presence of museums, art galleries, exhibitions and lectures that I haven’t known about before. Also through Instagram I’ve discovered a wealth of talented artists which brings me on to this subject:

a still life challenge run by stillherestilllife and the Tate. This is my iPad painting response to it last week, I only just learned about it recently, this was week 35 so I’ve missed quite a few. We had to respond to a photo prompt by Wolfgang Tillmans entitled “Stillben Markstrasse 1997” here:

Stilleben Markstrasse 1997 by Wolfgang Tillmans

I started my painting in ArtRage then moved it into Brushes Redux, which seems to be my way of working!

ArtRage:

Brushes Redux:

Another online project I’ve took on recently was linocutting, I signed up for a workshop to linocut a Christmas card; there were about 15 participants who signed up from various countries. Lou Tonkin https://www.loutonkin.com is the very talented printmaker who gave the workshop, and it was organised by the William Morris Gallery in London. Lou was an excellent tutor, and the whole thing was really enjoyable, a nice relaxed and easy atmosphere with no blood shed by the end of the day considering the sharp tools everyone was working with!

We were asked to design something in advance, which I did, however after some thought I suspected my initial design idea was a bit too fiddly for the size of the card, A6, so I drew out some backups in case. As it happens this is not going to be this year’s Christmas card, but possibly next years as I’d like to work in some colour.

First design ” 3 French hens ” which wouldn’t have worked in such a small format:

I then drew them as individual French hens, which missed the point really but never mind:

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I chose this one to make a linocut from and here is linocut left with the printed card on the right:

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The rain beats down in torrents as I write, we were so spoilt by the glorious November sunshine this year, I forgot how yuk winter can be sometimes.

Just to warm your cockles up a bit here’s a sample of early morning golden November sunshine just last week:

…..keep healthy, keep safe………

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