IMT- Face

I saw this article in a magazine. What do you think ... perfect?

Hmm ..I think I'll stay as I am!

For "Face" at IMT this week.

Visitors Overheard

Here are some more of my Tate Modern sketches - other visitors this time. I find it really interesting to hear what other people have to say about art and how they react to it - especially modern art. I suppose I'm a people watcher - its really addictive.

This guy here actually caught me doing this sketch of him which was quite embarassing! :-)

Guides Overheard

These are based on a couple of quick sketches I did when I was in the Tate Modern in London. If ever I see a guide giving a talk on a painting I try and sneak in at the back to listen (if I can get away with it)!

Partly because I want to learn more about the paintings, partly because Im nosey!

IMT - Glass

The theme at Inspire Me Thursday this week is "glass". Here I am posting a study I made on glass, painted with special glass paints It combines various aspects to represent the idea of nature and I was trying to achieve an effect similar to stained glass windows. I did it ages ago at school!

Sorry for the bad picture - it is hard to get a good one because the flash reflects on the glass.


The picture is mounted on a frame with tin foil (!) behind. It creates these really nice effects of ripples in the colours where there are wrinkles in the foil.

Taking It Personally - Advice please ...

I'm really fed up today. Been working on the above painting of me (not looking my best!). My mum just saw it and said "I really don't like that. It's awful." So I'm sulking now and feeling quite disillusioned with the whole thing.

The trouble is that unless I'm doing a painting of a vase of flowers, kittens or something "nice" my mum hates it. I guess she is the main person who sees and comments on what I do, so I do take it quite personally when she says things like that.

I get her point that it is kind of awful in a way. Thats is what the painting is about.

To explain - I had just last week lost someone very close to me. I went into a kind of strange stage of shock for a few days where it really didn't sink in. Then all of a sudden it really hit me late one night. This is a painting of that moment. Its just me trying to make sense of the world, myself and dealing with the events that are thrown at us.

Its like the quote this week at IMT "You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul." (George Bernard Shaw). Its really a painting of how I feel and to that end it is very personal and important to me.

Am I being too sensitive?

How do you other artists cope with (non-helpful!) critisism like this and not let it get you down?

Tate Modern

Here is a photo of The Tate Modern. I loved it there. Its the second time I've been - the first was on a school trip so I wanted to go again and explore it in my own time. I was in there so long I was thrown out at closing time!

These are four of my favourites from the day. Linen by Natalya Goncharova, Three Points by Henry Moore, Scylla by Ithell Colquhoun and Night Vision by Fiona Rae.

This is Ishi's Light by Anish Kapoor, a sculpture in fibreglass and resin.

When I was stood in front of this I did a quick sketch of my reflection in it (see below) which was upside down and really weird - like looking at your reflection in a spoon.

When I did a bit of further reading about the sculpture, I discovered that the artist was aiming to create a unique kind of experience for the viewer when standing in the folds of the orb-type shape. He was very keen to play with the light and the way in which it was reflected and distorted by the shapes and texture of the sculpture. So I'm quite pleased with my little picture now because I think the artist Anish Kapoor would have approved of this response.

Reflected In Ishi's Light

Art Pilgrimage Part Two

Visiting The National Gallery on a rainy day in London.

Hello everyone.

I'm back from my holiday in London. Following on from my trip to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam I was traveling to London to visit The Tate Modern and National Art Galleries.

Here are a couple of my highlights from the National Gallery.

The Crucifified Christ with the Virgin Mary, Saints and Angels by Raphael

I managed to join one of their free guided tours and my favourite painting here was The Supper At Emmaus by Caravaggio.
An amazing painting to just stand in front of and absorb. But to have the guide to tell us the story behind the painting and about the artist's aims was brilliant. There are so many aspects of technical genius in this which were totally radical (and not always well recieved) at the time. I eventually understand foreshortening too, at last.. Kind of.

Caravaggio seems like a very interesting character and I'm looking forward to learning more about him now I'm back home.

I was really excited about seing Sampson & Delilah, one of my favourite paintings at the gallery. I must have spent almost an hour walking round with my little map trying to find it. When I finally got the bottle to ask where it was, the man said it was on loan abroad. Oh well..