New and newly found Contemporary Abstract Drawing and 'Back To Beauty' Exhibition.

Above is a drawing I started and finished in my 'whole sketchbook' project that I started somewhere near the beginning of September. I have only flicked through the whole thing a few times but it seems to hang together quite well and with the odd surprise as you travel through it's pages.

Above is a drawing that I have just found again in the middle of some wrapped browser works. This was completed earlier this year and I must say I think I feel more pleased with it than at the time I did it. I do like it when that happens.

Today has been another mixed day, I went and sorted out our water delivery to Barnoon Workshop and then went to many places around town delivering more leaflets of our December events including for our mini pop-up exhibition Back To Beauty that starts tomorrow evening with a private view from 5pm so if you read this and are in the area please pop into see us, otherwise do pop in 11:00 - 16:00 Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I will be there most of the time and working on some larger drawings whist it is open. It will be interesting seeing mine and Zoe Eaton's work up together again although we seem to be hung in the same places quite a lot these days, from being in the Uys Gallery until it sadly shut and had our own 'Art Lovers' exhibition at Cafe Art in the summer. So here we go again. I think our work goes well together, we have a lot in common and enough differences for it to work together.

Whilst delivering leaflets around town I also took this shot below of the remaining sand wall on Porthminster Beach, it is much like the one on Porthgwidden that I photographed last weekend. It is impressive what a storm leaves us in this elemental part of the world.

I am doing this blog earlier than usual as I have a few guitar lessons to do later this afternoon and evening.
So I am off to do that and then on with my pattern quest later this evening.

Art Tour, new drawings and RIP Brian Stanley

Above is a reverse drawing I finished last night, not the best pic of it forgot to take a shot before the light faded tonight.

Today has been a mixed day, for me it started with doing and art tour for one. So went on a slightly different route because the footpath past our workshop has now been closed and will be for 5 months due to the works on The Tate St Ives extension (more about that later). So after going up to see Alfred Wallis's grave we then went out and about to tour the towns art haunts and significant places, We ended up doing some sketch work from the end of Smeatons Pier.

Below is the little sketch I did from the end of the pier looking over to Porthminster Beach and The Pedn Olva Hotel, quite happy with it.

 

 This afternoon, we went to the dump at St Erth to get rid of a few things and then onto Penzance to get some PVA for The Lantern Parade and to get some floor paint, did a quick shop and headed back home. Chilly but sunny and as we traveled back the sky had a wonderful pink glow with hardly a cloud, quite beautiful.

On returning home I logged onto social media to find out that a great town character and major mover in The St Ives Jazz Club Brian Stanley has died, he had been ill for a while but I don't think many of us thought it would be this soon. Our thoughts go out to his wife, family and close friends. Brian was a lovely chap with a very droll wit attached. He will be sadly missed by so many.

I will be off to draw and let this news filter in. I do feel sad.

Until tomorrow cheers !

Contemporary Abstract Drawing and Water Colour and St Ives Lantern Parade.

Above is the drawing I completed last evening dots on dots under dots.

Today I attended the Water Colour course at The Barnoon Workshop. I have seldom used water colour but as I was being guided into this water colour world I experimented in a Wotnot kind of way whilst following the exercises  quite faithfully whilst applying and exploring my language. It was a lot of fun to play with a different medium for a change so below are my experiments, some very me and some exploring with joy.

After the workshops today we had a volunteer meeting for this years ST Ives Lantern Parade, sadlt under funded for this years parade but it was a very positive meeting with some good folk and Barnoon Stalwarts and a new helper too, so Thanks to Pete Jarman, Tree Stewart, Kaz Turnbull, Erin Lacy and La la from South Korea. It went pretty well and considering the meager budget  we have for this year we will still pull off a pretty good show. Sad to say it could have been much much more. Next Year we will rise higher than ever before but this year we will be doing our uptmost best with what we have.

After the evening meeting we retired to the pub for a couple and ended up in the Kettle and Wink and we were very much entertained by Tom Jackson, Malcolm Hurst and Hugo Pulley. They do do it well, damn good blues.

Well I have to get a bit of drawing in and relax, cheers.....

Dots and stuff

Above is the reverse drawing I finished last evening, it took ages to do the double circles around each white gel dot and the almost unseen bled blue dots from the other side apart from in places where the ink flowed better.

Today we attended Stitch St Ives for Zoe to do a bit more Plastic Fusion and while that was happening I started this drawing. I like the way the ink has bled already, especially in the centre and want to add to it later.

Since returning home I have painted some cupboards to cheer them up, had my Sunday roasties worked on the Barnoon Workshop website and am now writing this listening to Tom Robinson on BBC 6 Music, good show too.

Whilst drawing in public I was told that my drawings were like aboriginal art from Australia. I did counter that I could sort of see that except I am not trying to tell a story or anything tangible. They are just patterns and the viewer can take away what ever they think when looking at them. When I re-view my drawings I see many things that range from:-

• It is just a pattern.
• I can see how long that took.
• It is a bit op-art
• They make me happy
• Remembering the process
• Colour/Monochrome
• How many dots on this?
• Realising I have done so many drawings
• Sold
• Where is it now?
• Universal form huge or minute.

 So I winder what I will be think whilst drawing tonight, could be anything once I have started. I could be having deep deep thoughts or paying some attention to a television program. I do hope there is a good art program on tonight, that always works for me whilst drawing. I don't always get so much time for reading books these days but I do read up stuff on other artists and show and movements on the net, especially if I don't know to much and find something I like.

Well I am off to and drawing and I will be 'thinking. not thinking' as the Martin Creed song goes.

Cheers!

St Ives Society of Artists, Christmas Open. Matthew Lanyon

Above is the first drawing I finished in last evenings drawing session, sharpies, uni-pin and white gel pen.

Above is the reverse that I started working on, I was satisfied with it last night but now I thinl I want to add more.

Here is a very small drawing.

Today we went off to Stitch St Ives at The Island Centre, an event run by our friend Jo McIntosh. It was a nice little event and we bumped into many St Ives folk. Erin Lacy was also there with her printing paints she runs some workshops for us at Barnoon.
Whilst this was on and my wife Zoe was running a plastic fusion workshop at the Island Centre I wandered off for a short while. I bumped into Bill from The Island Gallery who showed me a pic he taken on his phone of Porth Gwidden minus much of it sand, so I nipped up there and took this pic to share. The sand bank as it seems to be now is some 6 feet in height.

Bobby Wotnot

After the stitch show we went off to the Mariners gallery to see our entries had all got in and here are myself and my wife Zoe Eaton with one of our works in the said show. We are both pleased and now fingers crossed for some sales too. We met many fellow artist whilst there with our coffee and cake, thanks Jason.
Marie Keeling, John and Nicola Higgins and Graham Dilley amongst others. Graham had found out about the show from us on our Monday morning drawing group and decided to enter and he also got three works in he and his partner looked pretty pleased to see his work in there and I know I was, shame I forgot to take a pic.

Zoe Eaton.

We also popped into the show at The Penwith Gallery and enjoyed it. On a sad note and I don't know why we didn't find out sooner that St Ives artist Matthew Lanyon has died at the age of 65. He is one of the sons of Peter Lanyon. It is sad news and although I did not know Matthew he was a stalwart of the St Ives scene.

I will be off to draw in a while, cheers all!

Whole Sketchbook Work and other things.

Above are three drawings that I finished off in last evenings drawing session, a colourful bunch mainly using sharpies, uni-pin and a white gel pen.

I still haven't been able to find out if mine and my wife's entries for the Christmas Open as I couldn't open a document that was sent detailing names that had made it in. So I will have to wait until tomorrow to find out. There is a Private View between 3pm and 5pm tomorrow.

Below I have included a few older works on wood, sea pottery and paper. The wood drawings were amongst the earliest wood drawings I did. The slate and sea pottery and the marbled paper one were all done in the last year or so.

I am starting to think about other large scale drawings however I have one to finish off before starting on other biggies but lots of ideas floating around in my head I am sure that by the time I start a new one I will be very sure of what I will do, or a least have the process sorted.

I am off to draw, cheers!

New Drawings and drawings of real things too.

Above are two drawings I finished last evening on my continuing exploration of pattern. It seems an endless and enjoyable journey,one that I don't seem to able or want to stop.

Below is the other drawing I started but haven't finished but might tonight.

Today was very enjoyable, I attended a whole day course in drawing led by my wife, the students were fun and we all did so much drawing, however I have only included a couple of my efforts. I am happy with what I did and learned so much. As I have said before I did little drawing of 'real' things until about 18 months ago and I am really enjoying.

I am hoping that all our works that we put in to the'open' exhibition at The Mariners have got into the Christmas show, so fingers crossed.

Off to draw, cheers!

New works by Bobby Wotnot and Zoe Eaton and The Society of St Ives Artists

Above is a drawing I finished in last evenings drawing session. I am very pleased with it. I was thinking of complicating it further but I so happy with it |I think it is done.

Above is a drawing I completed a while ago but I have just framed it ready to go to The Society Of St Ives Artists open exhibition. The price is £200 and it is called Black Sun.

 My wife Zoe Eaton has also finished off work for the same said exhibition and I would like to share them with you. I must say Zoe really seems to have got her 'mojo' back I am so looking forward to what will appear in the coming weeks.

I think I will be going back to my sketchbook works tonight after my guitar workshop at Barnoon tonight so consequently thinking about what I will do in tonights session. I wonder what I will do. It is good to have all our works down at the Mariners I hope we get chosen to be on the wall.

Just found this, it is a pic of one of my other entries into the Christmas open and now for the purposes of the show it is called Deceptive Orange.

Cheers All.

New work in progress, Inspiral Carpets, Grids, Contemporary Abstract Drawing

Above is the drawing I started working on yesterday and showed a little of, I must have done nearly four hours on this last night and need to get it finished off tonight. I am feeling very happy with it so far.
I thought when I started going around all the blue dots that it was going to take so long there must be 3,500 of them so I am not surprised but I just didn't really think about it in the terms of repetitions labour, not that I am unaware of such with all the dots I have drawn in the course of all the work I have done over the last 15/20 years.

Random Beach Art

As I have been mainly drawing the blue dots drawing at the top in the last day I have no other new drawings to show you so below are a few grids I did in a book of grids, nice bold pen experiments.

Well as usual the soundtrack to me writing this blog has been Marc Riley and BBC 6 Music and the first half hour has been fab including Wire and sadly the Inspiral Carpets 'Gilly' has died at the age of 44. He was a fab drummer, I remember supporting them at The Electra Cinema in Newport Pagnell, sadly no longer there another casualty of mass consumption. I remember the sheer power with a killer kit sound driving the band hard but with groove. This gig must have been just before the whole Madchester thing came into being and our band at the time was New Mutants, we were kind of an indie band whatever that mean't/means. I remember we played pretty good but knew they were destined for big things soon.

Today I have also done a drawing class and given our forms in for the Christmas Open at The Society Of St Ives Artists, we deliver the work tomorrow and preview night is Friday.

I have some drawing to do so cheers!

Last Nights Drawing Session, Today and Zoe Eaton's New Painting.

Above and below are the two drawings I finished last night above the a-side and below the bleeding narrative. Nice and minimal for me, I always try to get back to it but mainly fail! Oh well.

As nearly every other week in the year I attend the Open Drawing Class at Barnoon Workshop with mt wife Zoe Eaton as tutor. I am learning a lot and really enjoy the act of drawing real things from time to time. I rarely work in pencil, so today was drawing glass vessels. I made me realise I have to work on my elipses so above bottle and glass and below 3 attempts at a wine glass. Although part of me is not satisfied with the realism of them I do like the style and am happy with what I produced.

The Barnoon drawing group are becoming quite a chatty bunch as we draw and makes two hours pass too quickly. It is normally split between music and art culture and everything else as well.

Above is a picture of one of my drawings taken through a prism lens, thought it might be fun.

A Little Good News

Above is a new finished painting by my wife Zoe Eaton, she is really getting back into painting. I love the joy of paint and colour.

Whilst my wife has been painting at one end of our large dining table I have been reframing some work and also I have been working on this drawing. I love the vibe in the house when we are both working on something at the same time in the same room.

I have more reframing to do so my work is ready for entry in The Society of St Ives Atists Chrismas show. I do hope my work gets in so fingers crossed.

I am getting ready for our evening meal to be fully cooked and looking forward to University Challenge and drawing.

Cheers all!