Trying to re-start and getting some new inspiration... Edinburgh, - David Shrigley

Well, it's been  a few weeks since my last blog, sorry that I dropped the bomb-shell about my dear brother passing away so suddenly.  Most of the last few weeks has been spent trying to get my head around what John's finances were all about and also sorting out his home etc.  The funeral arrangements too, which took up a sizeable chunk of my attention, but I'm glad to say, went ahead without any hitches.

So, after all of that, my lovely wife and I spent some time up in Edinburgh, both to get over the loss of John, the funeral etc, but also as a rather muted 15th Wedding Anniversary break.   The good part from an artistic point of view (in addition to having four full days of my wife's attention, and vice-versa), was a visit to Edinburgh's Gallery for Contemporary Art, and also the National Gallery for Scotland.

Both sites are virrtually under one roof, although they do occupy two buildings right in the centre of Edinburgh, just off Prince's Street.

The contemporary gallery was the first one to be scrutinized, - it was here that we found one of my favorite contemporary artists whom I've mentioned in previous blogs, that being one David Shrigley...

I love the simplicity of this artist's work, as it seems he can find humour in the most mundane aspects of "being human"...  The exhibition in Edinburgh courts the usual modus operandi of his, in that pieces are created in simple black & white, yet reflect (metaphorically speaking), the vibrancy of very day living.  

A major feature of this exhibition are the clay / pot wellington boots.  It doesn't take long for me to relise the message David is trrying to convey, - the ease of which he trieshard not to make the visual clues too difficult.  Indeed, he has said in inteerviews, "I don't want my art to be a cryptic crossword puzzle", - in other words, it should be easy for thhe viewer to "get"the gist of his message.         

The exhibition by David Shrigley was (as often isin his case) a slightly tongue-in-cheek observation of what we are all marching towards, that being Death of course.

 Clearly, this was a subject quite near to the bone for me and still very raw in my mind following the previous weeks activities, and yet, I felt that Mr Shrigley had quite sensitively captured a highly poignant theme...  I was not offended in any way by this as his works do have a slightly detached from reality quality about them, and so can easily be accomodated.

It's been a horrible week....

Well, where do I start?

- It's been a really difficult week for me as my dear old brother, John, passed away suddenly and quite unexpectedly last Sunday.  My drawing has virtually ceased for the time being, I just about managed to hold it together to sketch a bunch of pink roses in a vase over this weekend, but I've not really felt like doing anything much.  Apart from sorting out John's finances and estate, I've been left quite numb...


John was only 56.  He was not only my oldest brother, but probably the nearest thing I had as a best friend (apart from my wonderful wife Julie, who has been truly a rock to rely upon).   I used to see John anything from twice or three times a week, or at least fortnightly at other spells; and even then the being together was sprinkled with lots of phone calls in between.   There's going to be a huge hole in our lives and I'm only now, a week / ten days or so later, realising how big this hole will be.

Life Drawing at the Sheffield Millenium Gallery & continuing my sketch practice

Life drawing at the Millennium, Sheffield 

Another weekly session at the Life Drawing class in Sheffield helped to crystallize my realization that when drawing men, it's really all about straight lines and angles at first, in order to establish proportions, shapes and angles, together with relationships between all the above to give a framework to the drawings.

The model was quite an older gentleman this time, and quite short.  Again this made for challenging drawing  practice, especially when trying to capture form in the quick 3  x 3 minute sketches

When drawing the female form, then it's not straight lines but all about curves.  These curves have tangents, and they have relationships to proportions and other shapes in the same was as for drawing men, but there is clearly this difference when starting each life drawing, depending on the gender of the subject.


The foreshortened leg caught me out again!.

And I probably over corrected the leg length on the next pose!

The next sketch was better (Left), but the final pose where both legs are foreshortened prooved that I'm not finding negative space and shading properly.  I must practice here!





I've inter-spaced my own earlier studies of the chair and also the drawings copied from the great masters here as I know that my life drawing today took a negative spin.  I was much less impressed with my work this week.  I think I know what I'm doing wrong, but I am finding it hard to apply it when I am under pressure.  This is what life drawing does. - It puts the artist into a different state of anxiety, especially as the mind is not only drawing a nude and has to also deal with all the pre-programmed notions of inhibitions, morals / ethical challenges and so on.  I'm just not removing my mind far enough to truly look at the negative spaces in isolation enough....  I know I can do this, - the chairs and studies below prove it...

It's a bit like setting up the foundations or scaffolding on to which  you can then lay more representative curves and facets.

Finding negative shapes, angles and curves made this chair a good subject to practice on....

  I'm definitely feeling the benefit of these drawing sessions.  I'm  a lot more comfortable now, I've overcome my own barriers, embarrassment and mature inhibitions to seeing a nude subject, and I genuinely feel I am making some slow, but positive, improvement.   My continued used of the Betty Edwards drawing course is also helping, having made a number of drawings recently for this self paced course too as can be seen above, but these are done in the comfort of my own home studio, not on public display like at the gallery!