The Big Draw reaches New York!

Somebody in the Drawing Center in New York has noticed the impact of "The Big Draw" (which goes on in the UK every October and which I wrote about in May) and has initiated a New York response

On Saturday 9th September, four venues in Lower Manhattan will provide an opportunity to draw. - or to view others participating in the projects.

This is what the relevant page on the Drawing Center website has to say

The Big Draw

Presented as part of Arts on the Horizon, a program of the River to River Festival

Saturday September 9, 11:00 AM

Inspired by the wildly popular program of the same name in the UK, The Big Draw will engage audiences of all ages in hands-on art projects. Pick up a free sketchbook and participate in artist-led drawing activities from 11:00 am - 4:00 pm at the following fantastic Lower Manhattan venues:

Battery Park City Parks Conservancy's
Teardrop Park
Self-Guided Drawing 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Artist-Led Drawing 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Discover the natural secrets of this beautifully designed park through outdoor drawing explorations with artists Ellen Driscoll and Larry Dobens. Create an monumental Rorschach inkblot on a scroll unfurled in the park’s Grassy Bowl.

Teardrop Park, between Warren and Murray Streets, east of River Terrace, in Battery Park City

Smithsonian's
National Museum of the American Indian
Reading Circle (Ages 5+) 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Artist-Led Drawing 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Experience the Museum's unique collection through a day of exciting drawing activities. Join a storybook reading circle and make drawings inspired by your own life. Gather in the light-filled Rotunda to create portraits with artist Jeffery Gibson.

George Gustav Heye Center, U.S. Custom House, One Bowling Green across from Battery Park

South Street Seaport Museum
11:00 am - 4:00 pm

Alongside the Museum's legendary sailing vessels, weave nautical rope into a giant drawing with artist Zoe Keramea. Celebrate the Seaport's rich history by making sketches and rubbings of the pier or craft scrimshaw like a sailor from long ago.

South Street Seaport, Pier 16, Fulton and South Streets

Winter Garden & Plaza
at the World Financial Center
11:00 am - 4:00 pm

Become part of Monika Weiss' large-scale public drawing performance beneath the Winter Garden's indoor palm tree grove. Outside, visit artist Fritz Welch and architect Matt Gagnon's kiosk, create blind drawings from memory, and tag the plaza and building with day-glo tape drawings.

Winter Garden & Plaza, Between Vesey and Liberty Streets, in Battery Park City

All events are free of charge.

Take the Downtown Connection to all four of The Big Draw events. The Downtown Connection is a FREE bus service provided by The Alliance for Downtown New York, connecting the South Street Seaport with Battery Park City, averaging 10-minute intervals between buses.

For more information about Arts on the Horizon and a map of venues, please visit www.RiverToRiverNYC.com.

Links:

• The Big Draw (UK) - this runs from 1-31 October 2006
• Making a Mark : The "Big Draw" 2006 (24 May 2006)
• The Drawing Center (New York)

Technorati tags: art , drawing

Two new sharpeners - from Prismacolor and Panasonic

When you use coloured pencils a lot, as I do, sharpening tools and instruments become a whole new passion! ;) Especially as artist quality coloured pencils just don't seem to work at all in very many pencil sharpeners.

I'd like to share the two new sharpeners I got while visiting the USA

First is the Prismacolor Sharpener. I assume since it's from Prismacolor that it's been specifically designed to sharpen Prismacolor's wax-based coloured pencils.

It's about 3 inches in length and comes apart in the middle. One side is a cover and the other contains a sharpener. The shavings go into the bottom of the half which contains the sharpener - which is not very big - so fine for the odd sharpen but less good if you need to use it a lot. It's handy size if you've got maybe a small pencil case or can pop it in your pocket. It isn't really a heavy duty 'around the home studio' sharpener for those of us who need to sharpen a lot of pencils frequently.

Oh - and it broke my new Prismacolors which I got at the CPSA Convention. I have a problem here because Prismacolors are known to break - so whether it's the sharpener or the pencil I really don't know.

Next is the big success - my new battery powered Panasonic sharpener - the KP 4A.
According to Panasonic the KP-4A has

A hardened steel cutter blade provides a perfect 16-degree point. Features include semi-transparent shavings receptacle, safety switch, and auto shutter.

What can I say - I'm in love! It's lightweight and compact - but uses 4 AA batteries which make it somewhat heavier. It has a funny grooved cutter thing (rather than a conventional pencil sharpener blade) which rotates extremely fast. This is just like the one in my big heavy duty 'sharp as needles' electric sharpener. When I got home I even caught myself using it in preference to the electric one as I always have leads and things to arrange with that one.

The even better news is that you don't have to depend on the vagaries of your local art store as Amazon stock it on amazon.com here. It's getting 5 star reviews from everybody except for one person in France - when it broke. Personally I've found it to be extremely reliable so far.

A Staples version which looks remarkably like this (so much so that my guess is Staples gets Panasonic to make it for them) was recommended by Dianna Ponting for sharpening charcoal pencils at the pastels workship I attended last month. I gather that might be cheaper.

However my new Panasonic does have an appetite. If used to sharpen coloured pencils, it needs to be fed a graphite stick every so often in order to keep it silky smooth in operation and in tip top condition - juts as I have to do with my electric sharpener. I now buy graphite sticks just to feed these sharpeners and keep them happy - and they just swallow them!

Links:

Sanford Prismacolor - sharpener
Panasonic Sharpener - KP-4A

Technorati tags: art , coloured pencils , colored pencils , pencil , pencil sharpener, pencils , sharpener

Palacio de Mondragon, Ronda

Palacio de Mondragon, Ronda

Pastel 15.5" x 23.5"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

When I first started doing large pastels and entering competitions and exhibiting in the mid 90s I had my artwork professionally photographed and 6 x 7cm transparencies produced.

Recently I had these transparencies scanned and transferred to digital file. In doing so I saw an image again which I haven't seen easily for over 10 years - since I packed it up extremely carefully and shipped it off to a gallery in Florida where it sold. This was especially pleasing to me as, not only was it my very first sale, but I had a very appreciative gallery owner who told me how to price it and it sold for a rather large sum of money!

And to top if off this sale proved a rather nice twist to the end of a rather good story which other artists might appreciate.

I visited Andalucia in Spain in 1995 - on a painting holiday with Jackie Simmonds. We were based in Vejer de la Frontera and paid a visit to Ronda while we were there. I was very taken by the Palacio de Mondragon, its architecture and gardens. I produced a pastel painting nearly the same size as this one - which when viewed later in the day evidently lacked some understanding of architecture and perspective - despite the fact that the colour record was OK. All in all I regarded it as a bit of a disaster and a wasted day in production terms.

When I returned home, I got my photos developed and found that I had taken quite a few of the subject. Photos gave me information about the light at the beginning and the end of the drawing session and some detail about the archway. I decided to have a go at redoing it using the photos for the perspective and the colour study for the colour.

I photocopied one of my photos onto A4 paper - and got a greyscale image. I then plotted the photo on to a grid drawn out on an A4 sheet in my Daler Rowney sketchbook (Tip - always leave space to number your columns - you can go scatty while working from one grid to another if you don't!)

I then made a much smaller grid around the very complex architectural features of the arch and courtyard beyond. In doing this close-up study I began to understand much better how the architecture worked - which isn't always so apparent when working on site with the light changing. Mistakes can easily be made as in fact had happened.

I then created a grid of equal proportions on my sheet of abrasive Rembrandt pastel card and used a pastel pencil to outline the main features. Once I'd got positioning right, it was a lot easier to block in main values in colour and to develop the painting from there. It took away all the worry about whether it was going to look silly like the last one and enabled me to focus on the more painterly aspects.

I also used my brand new set of Unison Blue Green Earth pastels for the first time - and these helped to lend a unity to the painting. I was completely 'sold' on Unison pastel sets after doing this painting.

Links:

Ronda
Palacio de Mondragon

Technorati tags: art , Palacio de Mondragon , painting , pastel , pastels , Ronda , Unison

The White Garden, Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent

The White Garden, Sissinghurst
coloured pencil in Moleskine sketchbook 10" x 8"

We went to Sissinghurst Gardens in Kent on Friday and I produced the above sketch while sat in the corner of the White Garden. The White Garden only contains flowers which are white and rather a lot of 'silver/grey foliage plants.

There's a pergola in one corner - next to the South Cottage - which is covered (I think) by white wisteria. Underneath there is a table and chairs around it which I've used before for drawing and painting. I sat on the table and "he who must not be bored while I sketch" read his latest book "The Ides of August" for those who are interested)

We were greatly irritated by a helicopter who hovered over the garden at a dangerously low height for about 20 minutes or more - a quite horrendous noise. My guess is that they were taking photographs - and also probably breaching air traffic control regulations!

Sissinghurst Castle Gardens were created by Harold Nicolson and designed by Vita Sackville West who used to have a gardening column in the Observer newspaper. Harold Nicolson suggested that the gardens were in reality the true 'portrait of a marriage'. They are now owned and run by the National Trust and are the most visited garden in the UK. The National Trust describe the gardens as follows.......

One of the world's most celebrated gardens, the creation of Vita Sackville-West and her husband Sir Harold Nicolson. Developed around the surviving parts of an Elizabethan mansion. A series of small, enclosed compartments, intimate in scale and romantic in atmosphere, provide outstanding design and colour throughout the season.

It's difficult to know whether to call it a garden or gardens as there are no many different garden rooms' within the overall garden - which is probably one of the reasons why it proves so popular with visitors. The gardens are located in the Weald of Kent, near Goudhust and Tenderten. Directions to the gardens are given in the at the end. It's certainly well worth a visit any time any time you are in Kent. However, please note that the garden is unfortunately closed from the end of October until the middle of March each year.

You can get a very good insight into what the gardens are like from this website about Sissinghurst which has been put together by a devotee and contains lots of photographs.

Sissinghurst is unusual in that it will not allow either tripods or easels into the gardens while they are open to the public.

One of the things I wanted to do on Friday was plan future visits and find potential alternative places to sit which would be out of the way of people and at the same time give me the space to spread out my kit. This is one of the views I found which will be getting a second visit.

However the NT do run courses at the gardens and you can apply to visit when the garden would normally be closed. There is a tutored workshop by Cheryll Fountain on Wednesday 13th September (when it is normally closed) and there are also photography workshops. For details of events in the coming months see this link.

Links:

• National Trust: Sissinghurst Castle Gardens
• Events at Sissinghurst - including painting and photography workshops
  
• Wikipedia: Vita Sackville West
• Wikipedia: Harold Nicolson
• Wikipedia: Sissinghurst
  

Technorati tags: art , colored pencils , coloured pencils , drawing , flowers, gardens, plein air , sketching , sketchbook

Other people's travels with a sketchbook

I love looking at other people's travel sketchbooks only marginally less than I like creating my own (which you can see on my website).

Roz Stendhal visited Paris in early June this year and has created an on-line version of the journal she kept on that visit. Her Paris Journal has many pen and ink and watercolour sketches of both her journey there (watch out for the Icelandic geyser!) and the places she visited in Paris as she toured the city with friends – Metro pass in hand. Roz also shows us the journal she handmade for the trip. Roz’s website Rozworks also has many other interesting things to look at and is well worth a visit.

Laura of Laurelines also visited France earlier this year and used her blog to display the sketches she did while she was there. Laura has now created a special gallery for the travel sketches that she's s done on different trips to various countries and writes about travel sketchbooks here. Her work is delightful, relaxed and fresh and I know I'm certainly looking forward with enthusiasm to her trip to Paris in October.

I'm going to include a link to both Roz's and Laura's travel sketchbook sites in my other blog "Travels with a Sketchbook".

If you know of any other sites where there are 'sub-sites' dedicated to sketchbooks and/or drawings/paintings done while travelling I'd be interested to hear about them.

(And many thanks to Laura who has just highlighted my site to her fans when introducing her new gallery!)

Links:

• Laurelines -paintings, drawings and a few sidelines
• Pastels and Pencils: Travels with a Sketchbook
  
• Rozworks - Journals
  

Technorati tags: art , drawing , sketching , sketchbook , travel , travel sketchbook