Origami

£20 well spent this afternoon I think, when I say £20 I actually mean £30 because I came straight home and ordered two books off Amazon - bumps the price up a touch!
I have been to an Origami workshop held in the Catmose Gallery, Oakham.  The workshop was run by Phiona Richards who is exhibiting in Fusion at the Gallery until 28th August.  There was only me and a very odd man in a rain mac in attendance, most peculiar...
Phiona demonstrated how to make boxes, simple stuff but it can be developed.  My favourite is made out of an old Victoria Holt novel I took with me.  Book sculpture is really popular at the moment, I think it has so much potential and looks so beautiful.  I really enjoyed it, so much so that I came home and purchased an origami encyclopedia and a bookbinding manual.  Can't wait to get started. Phiona is running some more workshops at Catmose, I think I'll see about booking a place - I've come over all creative!

Here's the links if anyone is interested;
http://rarenotions.co.uk

http://www.catmosecollege.com/?gallery=gallery_exhibitions&left=gallery

       

Nottingham Contemporary

Nipped down the M1 to Nottingham this afternoon, I wanted to visit the Contemporary Gallery.  I have been meaning to go since it opened 8 months ago.  I hate driving in Nottingham so have been putting it off until now.  As per normal I got lost on the way home, ended up going in the wrong direction on the motorway! The Gallery was good though, I was impressed and inspired.  I liked the print qualities of some of the Gert and Uwe Tobias works and the rawness of the sculptural pieces.The Diane Arbus photographs were amazing, and so many of them. They were what photography should be; interesting, moving and beautiful.  They provide a fascinating insight into the lives of so many people in an era long gone.  I'd love to be able to capture moments in time and preserve them forever in such a magical way.  My favourite thing was the Small Collections Room.  A tiny room with gorgeous ornate cabinets against the walls.  That in its self was lovely enough, but there was more.  Each cabinet was filled with a collection of objects chosen by selected artists.  The objects ranged from exquisite tiny pieces of mosaic jewellery to outsized drawing pencils.  It was one of those exhibits that leave me wanting to go away and create something...

Stratford Upon Avon

Instead of sitting around the house on my own today, I decided to go to Stratford.  The traffic on the way in was jammed, but it wasn't that busy once I had parked.  I walked along the river up to Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried, and back towards the town through a little park.  The Oxford Theatrical Company were performing The Taming of The Shrew in the park so I sat and watched that for a while.  After that I wandered round the shops and pretty streets, got annoyed with the tourists - why film a pigeon eating a bit of bread?, had some lunch on the river bank and went to the Butterfly Farm.  I'm not kidding, there were Butterflies everywhere.  They were massive and landed on you.  It was frightening, like having a dirty great bird/insect thing crawling on your skin.  No thank you.  I got some photographs of cocoons though, which I want to use in my art this year - or at least an idea based on the safety of a cocoon...
So after the Butterfly ordeal I walked round the shops a bit more and nipped into Whitehall Gallery where they had a Rolf Harris Exhibition on.  The woman was really nice, I think she thought I was going to buy something.  Very much mistaken I'm afraid.  Then it was back to the car and home before it started to rain. A Saturday well spent.

Oversized Tote Bag

Really big bags are so handy when I'm trudging between work, uni and home.  This year I have had innumerable bags break mid journey, spilling sketchbooks, lunch and laptop all over the studio or the street. Well no more.  Today I made my self a lovely big Tote Bag.  And it's fully reversible.  I'm ever so proud of it!

Crazy Patchwork Update

I've more or less finished the Crazy Patchwork project.  I'm going to cut up the big panel and frame the smaller pieces.  I just need to do a bit more embellishing, I plan to add flower buttons and ribbon embroidery.

Sculpture In The Garden

I went to the Botanic Gardens this afternoon.  It was beautiful and sunny; the gardens are a lovely place to just go and sit or look at the plants and wildlife.  This years Sculpture  Exhibition is called Heart Head and Hands.  Although there are far more sculptures than in previous years, there was very little I actually liked.  I found it all a bit too literal, the majority of the works portrayed Heads, Hearts or Hands in a very obvious way.  There were some pieces I liked including this one. 

It's made of plastic bags and reminds me of a large, exotic plant.  And it makes a lovely rustling noise in the wind.  I thought the Spider one was interesting, but it's very Louise Bourgeois.  Other ones that appealed to me included a structure made from bamboo canes with luggage labels tied on; the labels had hand written, personal messages on them,  fascinating to read.  A spiky glass one and one with metal poles woven through the branches of trees were also good.  I wandered around for a while, sat on a bench , took some photos and enjoyed the sun.  What they really need there is a tea room!

Interesting image

Saw this road marking vehicle whilst driving.  I really like the piles of paint...

Ferrers Gallery @ Staunton Harold

Quick visit to Staunton Harold this afternoon.  They have a British Contemporary Craft Exhibition on in the Ferrers Gallery at the moment.  It was pretty work, I particularly liked the large scale mixed media pieces by Lesley Whelan.  I've seen here work before and thought it was lovely, the colours are so vibrant.  I'd like to know more about how the work is made.  While I was there I had a little look around the tiny shops that are based in the courtyard.  I bought a really cute little bag for my daughter; she may be 18 but I think she'll love it!

Didn't have a cup of tea in the cafe, it was packed because of the nice weather.  Instead I went for a walk around the grounds and sat outside near the lake for a while watching the ducklings splashing around.  It was a lovely peaceful afternoon.

New Walk Museum & Gallery

On Saturday I nipped into town to visit the Museum, there were a couple of exhibitions I wanted to see and a couple I thought I ought to see while they were in Leicester.  The Leicestershire Photographic Society have their 125th Exhibition on at the moment.  Call me old fashioned but shouldn't good photography be just that, good photography?  There were some lovely compositions but the images were so digitally edited they were awful.  I'm not averse to the odd touch up here and there, heaven knows I need it, but to completely change the atmosphere of a beautiful image defeats the point for me.

The Meri Rail Portraits are still on so I thought I'd better have a look at them.  I got bored.  There are only so many photos of Char Wallahs I can look at in one day and there were two rooms full of them.  I skipped the second room.

I really did enjoy The Contemporary Art Society - Gifts of Art.  There are some really interesting pieces in the exhibition including a beautiful John Piper as well as works by Victor Passmore and Bridget Riley.  We usually have to go to London to see work like this, there should be more of it exhibited in Leicester instead of it being stored away.  The works in the Permanent Gallery are rarely changed - lets have a bit of variety please.

Jenny Grevatte has a bit of a retrospective going on at the moment, some of her work is in the Museum and some at the Attenborough Centre.  I loved the pieces in the Museum, particularly the Tree paintings.  I thought they were really inspiring.  I wish I could paint like that - but she has been doing it a lot longer than me... I haven't been to the Attenborough Centre yet, will probably go this week.  Jenny teaches at the Centre and has included student sketchbook pages in the exhibition which I think will be interesting to see.
I quite fancy starting a sketchbook that has nothing to do with Uni work, but don't think I have the motivation.  The trouble is I'm only truly interested in creating work based on memory, which is what I do at Uni, but sometimes I'd like to make something pretty, although I don't like it when I'm doing it as we saw from the earlier printing episode!  Maybe I will start a memory sketchbook instead.

London trip

This week I went to London for the day.  I wanted to see the Horace Walpole exhibition at the V&A before it ends on the 4th July.  I was disappointed.  There were some pretty bits in the collection but it was very dry and wordy, I thought it would be a more eclectic mix of bits and bobs. A video of the restoration of Strawberry Hill was playing near the exit, the house looks more interesting than the art works on show.  I shall definitely visit when it opens.  I did see some of the Architects Build Small Spaces exhibition too which was more interesting than I thought it would be, although the exhibits were a bit hard to find.  I would have preferred them to be in one space - but that defeats the object of designing for a particular area.

I also went to Lauren Shanley's shop in the OXO Tower.  Lovely, skilfully made items of vintage colourfulness.  Lauren was in the shop making things on her sewing machine.  Really inspiring - if only I could sew!  The OXO Tower itself is really nice.  I had never been before, it's a really nice area of individual designer shops and galleries that hasn't been too modernised or over restored.

The highlight of the day was Yinka Shonibare's ship in a bottle on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.  It's so beautiful.  It has to be the best piece of art that has been on the plinth so far.  I loved it.

After school print class is OVER!!!

That's it, finished.  The show is coming down tomorrow and I don't have to look at these prints again - although I might try a large screen print over a couple of them!