Art for art's sake*

I am not getting much sewing done, because of  the conjunction of a family commitment due to an older relative needing more support than usual, both sons doing BIG exams, difficult times at work, and more positively, starting a drawing course at Morley.  I am trying to use any chunks of time to address my fear of the drawing implement, rather than turn to the sewing machine.  So far, I am OK, despite having had to miss a couple of sessions ( conferences and other members of our very small team being on holiday).  Each session is 3 hours, and we have been given the opportunity to try lots of techniques.  Sadly , I missed this week's life-drawing session.  Examples of work done so far follow below.  I am pretty amazed that I have been able to get to a semblance of recognisable objects in these.

Week 1 - drawing an imaginary elephant and then copying a photograph with a scaling grid

Week 2 - perspective drawing of a table top - no photo as it  looks really boring

Week 3, drawing lots of small objects from different angles

Week 4, drawing something very small on an enormous scale - paper is A1 size

Week 5, observational drawing at home and while travelling

I do find the 3h sessions exhausting, but as with all tasks requiring hand/eye/brain coordination, I can see the value of practising little and often.

Art of a different order at the weekend, when I went to see:

• The Glamour of Italian Fashion - gorgeous;
• the David Hockney charcoal drawings at the Annely Juda Gallery, on until 12 July ( free) where the drawings can be seen in great detail.  I was mesmerised again by the film of the car going down the snowy lane, filmed by 9 cameras at the same time.  It is really haunting, particularly in this longer version than was seen at the Royal Academy, as people appear and disappear from the film.
• next to the Francis Kyle Gallery, where I was initially drawn in by the wonderful colours in the paintings by Jon Wealleans, but spent more time looking at the etchings of Venice by Malte Sartorius.  There will be a larger exhibition of his work starting on 21 May for a month, and I'll definitely be going back.
• oddly unsettling paintings and photographs at the Hus Gallery, but the repetition in the paintings by Neil Raitt became more compelling with time spent looking
• finishing up with the sculptures of Lynn Chadwick at Blain Southern.  I think I am in a phase where I am  more and more drawn towards line and form rather than colour

The exhibition also contains a maquette for one of the kinetic sculptures I saw last year at the Cass Sculpture Foundation

A great way to end the day and f course I have now downloaded the song* to my iPod.