Collage from Mary, some bits upside down if you look closely!

 

Monday Challenge.......

I havn't been out much lately! But looking out of the upstairs window I have been watching the magnolia buds getting bigger, and the grass getting greener. I am interested in the idea of a 'birds eye view' of my garden, the landscape, and the position of my house within the village. Perhaps a sort of diagramatic sketchmap.

We tend to be obsessed with 'European perspective', like vanishing points and getting the angles right. But there are other ways to think about describing landscape. Remember that in India and China it is perfectly ok to show the side and back of a building as well as the front, all in the same painting. Even though you can't actually see the back you still might want to know what it looks like!

So, as ever, you can make up your own rules to describe a scene! Be brave!

You could try thinking of your drawing as a sketchmap, as if you were giving someone instructions to find your house. Then allow yourself to play decoratively and instinctively with the shapes you create. It could be black and white or colour, whatever you like, even collage.....

You could base your work on a view from your own window, or expand it with your imagination, or from photos to go further afield......

a David Hockney landscape

by Carry Ackroyd. You can often see her prints at Birdscapes Gallery, Glandford.

pets and Spring from Carole S and Sheila.....

 

Two Spring Pictures from Ruth and Terry......

 

Pics from Cathy......

 

Two Spring Images! Mary L and Maggie........

 

Dogs and Bottles.......from Mary R, and Ruth, and Helen and just wait and see tomorrow what Maggie has done!

 

A New Home for a Community Market Garden........Can you help?

We spent a lovely couple of days drawing and painting up at Eves Hill Farm, Booton, Reepham, a few years ago. They now need room to expand. Here is all the information. Perhaps you know of somewhere which might be suitable? 

Please contact Hannah if you just might! 

Hannah Claxton

Eves Hill Veg Co

m. 07876354363

www.eveshillvegco.com

www.facebook/eveshillvegco

 Can you help us find a new home...?

For the first five years of Eves Hill Veg Co's life, we have been based at Eves Hill Farm in Booton. We are now looking for a new home. A place where we continue to develop our work, dig in, establish deep roots and grow. We have built a strong reputation, connected with a huge and wonderful community and developed our market gardening, growing, distributing and training social enterprise model - proved our worth! This year our veg sales will be 4 times what they were in our first year and we have now put almost 100 people through formal training programmes. That's growth! It feels good to be able to seek out this next step with a reputation behind us. And proof that if we have access to land, we know we know how to use it; to be super productive food growers, share it to build community and to provide a unique platform for encouraging economic and cultural growth.

Check out our stats, come and say hello, talk to those we have worked alongside. If you (or anyone you know) share in our values and have the skills, expertise, creativity or resources, then please step forward, introduce yourself and help us grow

What are we looking for (ideally):

* 2 acres of land (minimum) with access to electricity and water, ideally a shed or barn and in a dream scenario facilities for a classroom. We do have our sister site in Aylsham at Bushey place, so if the new site is found in Aylsham, we could potentially link the two together using a patchwork farm model.

* To be within our community of Aylsham and Reepham. Aylsham is proving interesting because a) it's where we currently (Tom and Hannah) live and b) the bus connections are so much better for access for those attending courses and training opportunities - it also connects us to Sheringham, Cromer, North Walsham, Mundesley areas.

* We may have to rent, a relationship with public council owned land would be interesting (public land for public good!) but buying a site is not out of the question - we think we could look at crowdfunding and grant match funding plus owning land would certainly give us the security we need to think long term.

Finding the right set up is intrinsically linked to sustainability, building trust and community, spreading good practice and building a different approach to food and soil in Norfolk. The more settled we are, the more able we are to support individuals and organisations to meet these same aims.

Can you help us find our perfect plot?

Do you have experience of running a crowdfunding campaign, know how to put together ambitious funding plans, have experience of community land trusts (where the community buy shares and own the land), have contacts at the council or want to help in any way? Or are you a private individual (land owner) or trust that is interested in sharing, donating, gifting land and developing an environmental legacy within your local community? Please let us know.

--

just some of the lovely salad from Eves Hill

 

Monday Challenge.......good luck with this!

 Traditionally in an art exam paper there are subjects given which you can interpret in your own way. The ideas and sketches you might do are an intrinsic part of the work. Very few artists turn out a masterpiece without some test ideas, cartoons, experiments to see how their concept might work.....

So my suggestion is 'Spring', and so of course you could think literally of how Spring is starting to appear, or you could try to show the idea of time passing, nature changing from winter to spring, or any interterpretation you choose. You might need to work in stages, or include more than one image to put your idea over. There is no right way or wrong way to do this.......

Or you could make a pet portrait. But remember that if you work from a photo do not trust the image because the lens of the camera distorts and its disheartening to find a careful painting of your dog ends up with an enormous head and tiny body. And a tip is to note and include a line describing where the backbone goes. From the tip of the nose, for example, down the back and along the tail. This does not need to be evident in yuor finished piece, but your awareness of it helps to give the image cohesion and clarity. Try not to be seduced by trying to only draw the edges of the creature!

Have fun!

Bottles from Carole S......

 

Work from Sarah, Terry, Cathy, and Shirley......

Firstly many, many thanks for all the kind thoughts, cards, flowers and even cake arriving on my doorstep!

Secondly Shirley mentions a programme on Channel 4, Drawers Off at 5.30, weekdays. I don't think its about making furniture.....

 

Work from Mary R, Sheila, Sarah, Jane, Hazel and Julie.......

 

First bottle still lifes......from Maggie, and Mary, and a card painting from Julie.

 

Monday Challenge to keep you busy.....

 There are certain staples for an artist to hone her skills on. Still life with bottles, without bottles, bowl of fruit and self portrait. Today its the former. ( you can blame Ruth for this!)

Find some interesting bottles, three is enough, more if you want. (Uneven numbers always best remember)

Handle them and consider proportions, colour, irregularities, lables.....

Get paper. Note its edges, or draw your own parameters. Envisage how the shapes of the bottles will fit, to advantage, within your framework, thinking about negative shapes and positive shapes. If you overlap your bottles of course you get new shapes. If you have a light source you have shadows. If you stand the bottles on a mat or paper you get a ground line. Don't obsess over reflections, just enjoy them if they look interesting. Remember its often good to hint at what you see rather than over do it........ 

Consider a ground line, it gives stability to an image, will you include a background? its all your choice.

And materials? well remember these are supposed to be quick non onorous works. If you find you are able, or want to put more time in thats ok, but you don't need to.

Scribble sketching with pen, water soluable crayon. Watercolour, even pastel (yuch!) or pastel over the watercolour? Or perhaps the same scraping technique we looked at last. What I particularly like about scraping paint is when the subtle vestiges of colour which normally you would not see become evident, and then the ease with which you can set up, or just imply straight lines.

So I very much look forward to seeing what you can do with this!

Incidentally I feel so much better today, thank goodness (Sunday) Paul getting on ok too, and thanks to all for good wishes and offers of help. We are managing well now I think, a little easier each day.....

Cheer me up with some lovely pictures please!

just an Update

 ....so on Wednesday 17 February I was at the N and N for Mohs treatment on a basel cell carcinoma.  Between my nose and lip I had 8 stitches and 3 disolvable stitches. It was scheduled for this time last year, but delayed by covid. On Thursday 25 Paul off by ambulance to the N and N, with bad chest pains, and then to Papworth to have open heart surgery for an aortic aneurism on Friday morning. Just at the same time I was having the stitches out of my lip at the N and N. (A very neat job, you can barely see it now). Thursday 4 March Paul had a pacemaker fitted, and then a procedure to synchronise his heart and pacemaker. And on 4 March I fell over, broke my hip, by ambulance to the N and N and a complete hip replacement on Friday 5 March. I came home by ambulance on Tuesday 9, Paul home with our daughter on Wednesday 10. Its a good job that there is a layby outside to enable easy parking for the ambulances!

The N H S were of course wonderful throughout.

So this is why there has been a slight hiccup with my blog, I will think of something new for Monday.......

work from Carole S, Terry, Carole M......

 

work from Carole M, Sheila and Mary R......

this image almost looks real!