Time has once again seized me in its inexorable current and its true that its less frustrating to go with its flow rather than fight the tide...! Despite that feeling that life streams through our fingers like skeins of mists unravelled in the wind, I do love that wind!
Tonight outside the window you would think it was the gales of autumn blasting the sky not a wild summer storm riding past all trumpets blowing! But anyway, time tossed or wind tossed, I have somehow managed to keep a few creative sparks kindling!
Above is another page of what I have decided will be a sketchbook purely for pen and ink... I enjoyed this drawing, exploring the textures and experimenting with the beautiful glass pen my parents got me for my birthday a while back. Owls are always good fun to draw!
Words too have been wending their way onto the page... right in the middle of another story I was supposed to be working on, an entirely different story barged its way past and took hold of my pen! Its a bit wild and capricious and probably the most quickly completed tale I have written, yet it was all there waiting and full of life... I think I rather like it!
Now to start thumbnailing the images and begin work on turning it into a dummy picture book...
The only thing is I will have to learn to draw wolves... canines of any kind I am not confident drawing, but I felt that way about dragons too, hopefully it will come if I keep sketching... here's a first attempt...
I've also been putting together some flyers to print for an exhibition.... I've not exhibited my work before - there's not that much of it that's good enough! But I will not be alone... it is to be a bit of a family collaboration, an exhibition of three generations - and that is what I've called it!
I've always been a bit too embarrassed to put my own work up in my own gallery, too much like blowing my own trumpet perhaps, but then I thought - I put so much work into putting on shows for other people, why not? It could be fun!
So it will be my Mum with her wonderful big oils on canvas of gardens and landscapes, myself with some children's illustration, life drawings and ravens, and my two bright little daughters just beginning their journey full of enthusiasm and children's innate creativity.
I think it will be a lovely way to appreciate the thread that runs through us as close family and as artists and to show each of us on our various stages of our creative paths.
Here's a quote from my press release:
“Growing up with an Artist for a mother meant that drawing was almost like breathing for me, I could not imagine life without a sketchbook! It will be lovely to share an exhibition with my mother and also with my children, almost like passing the paintbrush on down the line...”
And here's a sneak preview of the double sided flyer..
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Finally I must MUST show you these wonderful animations I found the other night on youtube... I've always loved 'real' animation as opposed to CGI which is very clever yet leaves me a bit cold... The Russian animators to me always seemed to have something quite special, and these by Yuri Norstein have such beautiful depth of emotion, spirit and sense of wonderment, I really love them...
(sorry couldn't find one without the advert)
and here's another by the same chap, hope you enjoy them:
