Big Draw in Balfron

On Saturday, we held our first ever Big Draw event in Balfron.  A group of us has set up a not-for-profit organisation, called FAB to encourage art activities in our village.  Since August, we have set up the group, two other members have spent hours doing grant forms, we have all undergone Child Protection Training and many meetings, all to try and raise awareness of art here.
On Saturday it paid off.  Thanks to a very welcome grant from our local Community Council, two jars of sweets, curtesy of the local Co-op, we were able to hold a drop in and draw day, as part of the National Campaign for Drawing.  At the last minute we also heard that our grant application to Make a Splash had been successful and so our funding is secure for at least another three events like this. 
Everyone had a great time and more than 200 people turned up. 
Our local paper, the Stirling Observer, published my piece about it today and I'm really pleased with how it looked (and that they didn't alter my words too much!).  Unfortunately, the article doesn't seem to be online, so here are some of the pictures they used.

Katie drawing with pastels at an easel.  She spent about 40mins on this one drawing and lots of other kids really enjoyed drawing using grown-up easels too.

Louise adding her mark to the large floor drawing

Large scale painting

Luci and Aoife creating self portraits

There were free cakes and coffee, but to get your cake, you had to draw your fantasy cake on a paper plate.  There were over 250 on the walls by the end of the day.

Daniel adding Kalim's outline to our giant 'put yourself in the picture' drawing

Angus showing that even the youngest could get involved.

Ewan, a local artist, showing us how it should be done.

Julie, who hates getting her photo taken adding some detail to the stitch drawing.  I spent most of the day threading needles for people.  It was lovely to see so many people sewing, especially boys.

Family Outing to the Quai Branly

Now this is how museum visiting should be with children.  The three of them sat down and drew with (washable) felt-tips, whilst I got to look and draw at the objects that interested me (I'm in the background standing up and drawing.  It diminishes the cosy image a bit if I let on that the youngest was just intent on scribbling colours and the middle one was drawing yet another maze, totally unrelated to the objects on show, but still they had a great time and so did the grown ups.  The cafe gave them ice-creams and us coffee with a little shot glass of chocolate mouse and a macaroon.  Almost idyllic.

Today however, I was on my own with three children in the Louvre.  Slightly ambitious maybe, but still they had agreed to a visit.  We had tantrums over lunch, walking, what to see and who ate the last sweetie (and with it my bribery tool).  They did do some drawing and I liked the floor patterns, but I didn't engage with the classical Greek sculpture the same way as I had with the non-Western art/objects at Quai Branly.  Part of it, I think is that it was harder to draw and more accuracy was required - not necessarily my strong point.  So thumbs up for the Quai Branly and whilst not necessarily thumbs down to the Louvre, maybe it wasn't the best choice. 

In fact, the highlight of today was messing around with all the colours of make up in Sephora on rue de Rivoli.  The kids loved being able to try out all the different colours of lipstick on their hands and their attempts with blusher restored the laughter.

Mask made of seal skin from Greenland



Guardian figure from the Gabon 19thC





Rain God from Mexico 1000-1521 AD, made from stone



The River

We are in Paris on a week's holiday and this was a fantastic installation we saw at the new museum called Quai Branly. The building itself is beautifully designed. It has a curving walkway up to the galleries, which are all black, with light filtered through the windows which were covered with a black mesh. There was lots to listen to as well as see. This installation was in the walkway up to the galleries and is by Charles Sandison. Called 'The River', it is as its name implies a river of words flowing down the path. Words got caught by the current and pushed on quickly, others get caught at the edges and move very slowly. There was even a waterfall of words down a column. The projection was onto the visitors too, which was fun and a storyteller taking round a group of nursery children suggested that our children were fishes in the flow as they lay down and let the words pass over them.

Popular Patchwork October

... is now old news, but I'm really pleased as my quilt was chosen as the cover girl.  I made this quilt for my aunt and it uses unusual colours for me - I was trying to match in with her living room. I'm not convinced it worked, but it is bright and colourful.  It also includes my last Quilters' Corner. After six years of writing it, it has been decided it is time for a change.  I'm going to miss writing it, especially as it encouraged me to do lots of textile based activities so I had something to write about, but hopefully it will give me more time to concentrate on other things, like my artwork and this blog.

Well hello again

Time just seems to have slipped through my fingers this summer and it is only now on a completely autumnal day that I am finally getting round to writing my blog again. So what have I been up to? Well, after the intense first half of this year, I needed a break, so I have been spending time with the family. This is not a euphemism for being sacked, how can I stop myself from being an artist? It is who I am. But it was nice not to pressure myself and just relax a bit. We went camping in Denmark for two weeks, which was fun. I even managed to drag the kids into some galleries. The galleries were more fun for me than the kids. Tønder Museum was fantastic. It was in a group of joined buildings, including a 40m high water tower, which housed chairs. There was an amazing view from the top. There was also some great contemporary art. I’d love to tell you about it and I even managed to make some notes and do some sketches, but my sketchbook got wet. Very, very wet at Legoland and all the pen ran. Thankfully, it was a new sketchbook so that was all I lost. We also had fun playing at being Vikings at the Ribe Viking Centre. There, an entire Viking village has been reconstructed, using Viking methods. You could even see the plant dyed yarns drying and watch them trying to beat the flax into a useable yarn.

I bought some new pens for the first time in ages and they are waterproof and aircraft proof so I think I’ve learnt my lesson.

Since our trip, our middle monster has started school and we are now getting back into a term time routine. Which means more time for me to work – hurrah! I treated myself with a trip to the Burrell Collection in Glasgow the other week to do some drawing. It is one of my favourite museums. Not necessarily for the objects it houses, but for the great building design, incorporating the natural surroundings of grass and woodland. It revived my interest in early Greek figurines or goddess figures, which I spent some time sketching. A lovely way to spend a day. The first photo doesn’t show the objects I was drawing, but I think it gives a better view of the luscious parkland outside. The park also has a herd of highland cattle, which always amuses me as it is in the middle of a city.

After my Burrell excursion, I’ve been doing more and more drawings of these little figures and hopefully it will be leading somewhere interesting soon.

So everything is back to normal or as normal as it gets here (normal including our baby with a broken collar bone as she fell out of bed in the middle of the night. Being a good mum I shushed her back to sleep and it was only in the morning we realised something was wrong. The bed is only a foot off the ground and she has been sleeping in it for over a year. She’s on the mend). And hopefully normal means I will be writing this on a more regular basis.