Monday 30th June, new image and blue tits

A dryish day, rain came later in the afternoon, very good for the plants.

I posted a book at the post office, and fed the birds.

They are very fond of peanuts and fatty stuff, there are about 6 blue tits, most of them babies, still a bit yellow, they seem to eat some of the bottle brush flowers or maybe there are insects in the flowers, or they eat the nectar , I don't know most of the birds eat all day !

Later I drew another litho print which I printed this evening, I used some seed heads as the inspiration for the image, the little man has been around my work for years, always popping up in strange places.

A quiet day after yesterday.

day in London Matisse, Nil and Richard

What a wonderful day.

We met at the coffee shop at the Tate and chatted our way through the Matisse.   More views from the members room on the 5th floor. Its funny true friends are just a thread through your life, you might not have seen them for a year or so , but that does not seem to matter, amazing.

 Then the Matisse, again and marvelling at his immense talent, his awesome skills and his love of colour and design.

Do go and see the exhibition at the Tate Modern ; Matisse, The Cut-Outs 

Some pictures of the sky and our boat trip to the Tate Britain, we saw great life drawing exhibition.

And no rain until I got home !

Brilliant, thank you Nil, Richard

and London.

June 27 more Matisse and the bookshop

Today was a beautiful day and some lovely work was done by Nicola, Shirley, Lesley and Sue, and many others.

The topic of conversation was life death and the answer to the universe , great morning guys.

Not quite Matisse but still lovely, we are thinking about next terms project, painting based on the paintings of Winnefred Nicholson

I then popped on the Bookshop and did a garden drawing.

there are so many interesting drawings in the sketchbook already. But when I asks if any of the visitors to the Bookshop if they would like to draw anything , they all tell me they can't draw, such a shame.

I do hope that there will be some more nice customers of the bookshop will come and draw in my sketchbook.

lovely Matisse, lovely rain

More Matisse , a lovely morning , the works of art are progressing well.

Pam and her image of a man carrying books. And Wendy with her exquisite colour shapes.

I filled up the green bin with all the gardening waste from this week, another 2 weeks until they empty this one.  Oh no, not good.

Tonight we met up with the members of the exampleart.org.uk at our local fitness centre to launch Annie Burrows's arts trail work. She has some beautiful collagraphs, interesting mixed media work and a lovely shadow movie. Her work is very thought provoking very lovely.

And finally it is raining , how lovely, I was looking forward to this, lets hope the grass doesn't grow too fast, i should have mowed the lawn today. It was too warm for me.

And the bottle brush is finally flowering.

more work , more gardening, more drawing, elephant and small beastie

A couple of days ago I did a couple of litho prints, it's a wonderful printing process, but you have to have patience.

It's been wonderful weather and I have been gardening a lot as well my green bin is full and so are most of my gardening containers.

Today I have been drawing in the bookshop and so has John's daughter Holly she doodled a lovely flower doodle, thank you Holly !

quiet day

Lovely weather for washing, so thats what I did, I also printed several litho prints, 

and strimmed the back garden, relaxed and did nothing much else, oh yes I posted some Waitrose magazines to my cousin in Holland, I hopes she likes them !

Ahhh and I also cleaned all the windows, they look lovely !

These are some of the flowers in the garden, 

and my orchid is still flowering !

My prints are for sale, email me if you are interested.

friday again, drawing all the way

Today some more Matisse inspired images were put together ready for the framers and the exhibition next year !

These images are cut  by Sue, Kim, John and Marie

Then I went to the bookshop and did some more drawing, I met a very nice lady there, her uncle died in the bomb blast during the war and her father got blown across the road , it all happened just next door to the bookshop, it was quite an emotional experience for her to be so near where an important part of her families history had happened.

I also drew some of our new table flowers, very nice.

Thursday June 19 nice day, cool, warm, cold , just in one day !

Well what a good day, two of the Matisse images have been finalised, one is going to be finished next week probably.

The work was done by Jean, June and Pam.

Also helped Jean will her tree hydrangea , or I think thats what it was , after 4 very large bags of stuff we could not see what on earth we had really achieved, still it took an hour and a half to make no visible change. The climber is still trying to get into her upstairs windows.

Earlier this afternoon I went to a small wonderful shop in Forest Row, they hold lovely classes nearly everyday of the week, crochet, sewing knitting etc, I might do a bag making course in the summer, a wonderful owner, apparently nice coffee and tea, I will let you know how I get on.

She loved my patchwork , calico bags and the little badges I made, my cards and elephants, and she wants more of my hand made objects , I will show her my polar bears, all very good !

Interesting pictures Tuesday June 17

Today was a very nice day, the images created in the class were so nice,

Gerard's Paul Klee inspired image looks great in the large mount.

Then there was Dorothy who created this lovely Matisse inspired people picture.

The weather went from rather cold to nice and warm, I had to water all the pot plants.

drawing in the bookshop

A grey Monday, I went to have my left low beam light fixed by Saab Turners Hill, they are so nice and fixed it in seconds ! Thank you  guys.

Before that I went to the Bookshop and drew a page in the sketchbook, I very nice guy called Rupert also did a drawing and the excitement of the day was a small fledgling lost on the doorstep of the bookshop.

I include Johns picture and my drawing page.

eastgrinsteadbookshop

A nice quiet day.

forgotten johns photo

saturday open studio day

Yesterday was a really nice day, Jean and I went on a open studio trip. We do this every year and we always found some amazing artists their work and their beautiful studios.

We visited Brenda Hartill and Vincent Matthew  in Uddemore, some amazing images from Brenda and beautiful etchings from Vincent. Thanks guys.

Brenda is also having solo show called Time Line at the Bank Side  Gallery near Blackfriars Bridge in July 2014.

www.brendahartill.com  www.vincentmatthewsart.co.uk

We also visited Louisa Crispin's beautiful new studio and her beautiful bird images, so envious Louisa ! To keep her company and showing some of their own amazing work were the newest SGFA member Filicity Flutter and Wood engraver Sue Scullard, both fabulous ! 

www.seos-art.org/artists/louisacrispin     www.felicity-flutter.co.uk   www.suescullard.co.uk

Someone else who has a very nice studio is Karen Birchwood her work is just beautiful, go and have a look if you have the time.

www.karenbirchwood.com/

All the information about the artists and the open studios in the South East are in the South East Open Studios booklet.

www.seos-art.org

It was a lovely day, we drovethrough the most beautiful country side.

Thanks so much Jean.

Oh yes we also drove past Great Dixter but unfortunately didn't have the time to visit !    

friday 13th

Today we did some more Matisse, wonderful images are being created, my students are amazing.

students website

these are some of my Matisse influenced images

The bookshop

This afternoon I spend some time drawing in my sketchbook, drew some bees and flowers,

a very nice American lady drew a green door, it was fun.

John will tweet and Facebook a picture tomorrow.