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Tuesday 4 November 2014

Drawing dried up buddleia - and Grayson Perry at the NPG

Today's task at Morley was drawing dried out buddleia flowers, using three different methods of drawing - outline with pencil, shape with small circular movements of the pencil, using ink and a brush.  I was Ok with the results of the pencil drawings, less happy with the ink and brush.

Pencil

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Ink and brush

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I restored my artistic sanity with a visit to the Grayson Perry exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.  I thoroughly enjoyed this and the pieces seemed very familiar having watched the first two episodes of his current series on Channel 4.  I particularly liked the way the pieces are placed on a path through the existing collection in the National Portrait Gallery, rather than all placed together in one exhibition room. This made me look at some of the permanent collection in a different way, particularly the collection of black busts in room 21, the display of suffragette photographs and articles in room 31, and the portrait of the Bronte sisters.  As ever, I did ponder who does the embroidery on Grayson Perry's hand-embroidered pieces.  In this exhibition, the number of French knots on the piece about the Ulster loyalists, " Britain is Best" is mind-boggling, and I don't think these can be done by machine.    The Scottish pedant in me couldn't help but notice the mis-spelling of Hogmanay on the tapestry " Comfort Blanket", but perhaps this is deliberate.  On until 15th March 2015 and,  perhaps because the pieces are distributed throughout several galleries, not too crowded, and it is completely free.

4 comments:

  1. Must go! I'm a devoted GP fan, which he'd probably hate, but it really do rate him as an artist and a person. He'd be a guest at my dream dinner party.

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  2. Should have also said I think those drawings are fab.

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  3. My phone won't let me see those sketches any bigger than thumbnail but they look great to me

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  4. I like the idea of doing the outline drawing first. no matter what you think of your drawings (and I think they are wonderful), better to have done them than not to have.

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