The past few months have been so busy that I haven’t kept up with my monthly blog. Our new venture Interview Room One has started to get some traction. I have been preparing for a new exhibition. And last month we had an extended vacation in the US. Every time I sat down to write a post something else needed to be sorted out.
New Exhibition
I will post some photos in my next update but tomorrow I will be joining three other artists to install an exhibition at Lime Street Gallery, entitled ‘Catalyst’. The concept behind the exhibition is artist collaborations. It has been a fascinating experience and certainly one that will encourage me to jump into a collaboration project again in the future.
This was my first artist collaboration. And I absolutely loved it! Art can be a very solitary experience so getting the opportunity to meet with, talk to and work with another artist has been an enriching experience. Both personally and for my art. Working with a shared theme, for us the coast, opened different perspectives. Helping me see the inspiration in a new and fresh way.
I was working with a potter and took inspiration from Becky’s medium, to explore working in a new format. Multiple, small paintings curated to create larger pieces felt more akin to the way in which a potter produces collections. Unlike painting a single large painting, the process of selection and positioning was the vehicle for achieving contrast and differences.
The experience has given me a new direction for a series of work which I will be continuing with for the remainder of this year.
New England Road Trip
In September my husband and I ticked off one of the items on our bucket list. We spent just under three weeks travelling around New England. We usually opt for more relaxing breaks in the sunshine so this was a very different kind of holiday for us. But one I’d definitely repeat!
We flew into Newark and took the train up to Portland, Maine. It did mean two full days of travelling but with very different scenery to admire the time passed quickly. In Portland we collected a car and after a couple of days enjoying the relaxed vibe of the place and several Maine lobster dinners, we started a trip down the North East coast ending up in New York City.
It is such a beautiful part of the world. The scenery is magnificent, the food was fabulous and despite a lot of travelling it did feel quite relaxing. For most of the trip we were driving which meant we could detour off to town names that just caught our fancy. Kennebunkport and Mystic being two favourites that weren’t on our original itinerary.
I think it’s fair to say that the hotels were mixed. We stayed in some lovely places and some which were clean but pretty basic. I’m not used to travelling light so if we did this again I’d have a different approach to packing. That also applies to art supplies. I decided on this trip I wanted to start drawing again so as well as far too many clothes I also took too many art supplies.
Sketching Our Trip
Before the holiday I treated myself to the brilliant course by Karen Stamper on Travel Sketchbooks. If anyone is interested in creating a drawn memento of a trip I’d thoroughly recommend this course. Karen has been taking sketching holidays for years and has some amazing concertina sketchbooks you can check out.
Following Karen’s guidance I prepared my concertina sketchbook in advance, convinced that I would struggle to fill even one side of the book. How wrong I was!
I was a bit rusty and haven’t really done a lot of sketching outdoors. It is something I’ve always wanted to do but felt a bit intimidated. I’m also conscious that as my husband doesn’t draw, plonking myself down for an hour can be a bit of drag for him. But he was happy to sit and read his Kindle or wander off on his own to explore.
The sketches I created are a mixture. Most I started outdoors and finished off in the hotel room where I could add colour and collage. Some were completed in cafes or the hotel from photos I took. These were mainly of Boston and New York where it was often more difficult to find a suitable place to sit and draw. But even in the cities I was surprised by how easy it was to carve out half an hour in a café to get a basic sketch started.
Capturing Memories
I now have a gorgeous, if a bit messy and wonky, reminder of our trip. The experience also reignited my love of drawing and has made me focus more on really seeing places. When I got home I found myself scribbling notes of buildings to draw in the North East.
The whole experience has made me start to see things differently and structures I walk past each day have taken on a new light. So much so that I’ve bought another concertina sketchbook and have started drawing local landmarks. Sadly as the weather has turned rather wet and cold the first few were done whilst sitting in my car to keep warm.
My only wish is that I had started doing this earlier as I would love to have created books from previous holidays!
Here’s a few more snaps from the trip….
