We All Draw Conference 2015

I presented a workshop at this conference in November 2015. The woman in the drawing to the left is Angela Brew, the conference organiser.  I like how she described drawing as "when two surfaces rub together and make a memory".

Sculptor Dumped by Agent

When in the cafe in an art gallery one expects to be surrounded by people discussing art. I am focussed on drawing the lady in the floral shirt seated opposite me but am deep-tuned into a conversation taking place to my right. She is a sculptor he is her agent, he explains to her that he is not getting "top prices" for her work any more, only in the region of £3000. She is trying to be positive about this when he drops the bombshell. He is passing the business on because of course he doesn't need the money..........she has been dumped by him and is silent. I assume she does need the money.

London is a big city but sometimes you bump into people you know

Travelling on the Overground off peak presents an open vista for sketching as the carriages are not divided and passengers are seated opposite each other. From a sketchers perspective it is as if potential subjects are placed before you. The man in the hat noticed I was drawing him so I quickly switched to the feet of the people sitting next to him to his left. He was sitting opposite a woman who he occasionally spoke to, I assumed her to be his wife. When he got off a young woman replaced him, she was wearing a very short skirt in order to present her thigh tattoos. I was already engaged in the drawing of the woman in the striped top on her iphone seated further along the carriage.  As I turned back to the spot opposite me to begin the next drawing I saw YiTing was now sitting there, she was a student of mine.

Space between

There is a space between these two drawings. Obscured by trees behind where the couple sit eating breakfast and drinking beer is the covered market. Each segment of the circular building has a hand painted sign with the name of the grain that was brought for sale beneath. It is now a local produce market but mainly attracts tourists to gaze at the unusual architecture. To the right of the couple sits a woman with a serious mullet hairstyle who I have mentioned in a previous post. I had to stop drawing her when she registered the unwelcome attention. There is also a temporal space between the drawings as the market was drawn the day before the couple. On leaving the cafe I noticed evidence of the day before......ground up pastels trodden into the cobblestones.

Janneau

Having taken a chair out into the village I sit in the hot sun. The wall is part of the Chateau fortification and is leaning out topped off by the heavy stone cross. I sit by the bungalow of Janneau, who can be heard grunting very loudly behind me as he attends to some manual labour. His sister arrives in a car with her husband and grandson. She has bought cakes for him wrapped in blue and white paper and comes across to see what I am painting. Janneau's sister likes the blue tinge of the paint and tells me about the blue pigment made in the nearby town of Lectoure. Angela tells me that Janneau is an extreme right wing supporter and the sister had once ticked her off for presenting him with a bottle of Ricard after he helped her with some heavy lifting. He has problems with alcohol.

Pearl plays table tennis

From a tiny drawing in a sketchbook filed away. The lightness of the drawing brings back memories of dazzling August sunlight in Lachapelle. The pose is so reminiscent of Pearl's inimitable approach to table tennis. Minimal movement, sunglasses on, hand on hip.

Catching the Last few Rays

In Lachapelle Pearl catches the last of the sunshine before we return to London and its' weather. The pink flowers attract a species of moth which looks remarkably like a humming bird. The pool hoover makes intermittent sounds as it tries to remove wasp corpses from the surface of the water, Pearl has scooped out the worst and left them in a small pile at the waters edge.