Alfred Wallis, Shabori, Draw St Ives and Abstract Drawing

Thursday:

 Above is the drawing I started yesterday and it looks like I might get it finished tonight. Most drawings I do are done with a process to explore. Normally I will be thinking of variations on a theme as I draw or think of a new theme and randomly my explorations continue.

Today has been a day of arts and crafts for me, it started with helping with another Shabori workshop and then people turned up for my 'Beach Life' drawing class so off we went to draw beach stuff from our vantage point above Porthmeor and below are a few of the drawings I did today as part of the session.

This afternoon after a little business lunch and getting ideas for new workshop we then had an Alfred Wallis workshop to do and so I took a merry little band of people out to draw again for the second time today to gather some drawings to help us with what we were going on to paint. We started at the workshop with show some pictures of his painting and explaining some of Alfred's story and how he was discovered. 

After we returned to Barnoon Workshop we all got down to painting and above is the homage I did today on a small piece of  decking that hadn't even been invented as a wood thing when Alfred was painting but to me it seemed fitting enough for now to use that as my substrate and I am actually very pleased with it. 

Alfred Wallis commemoration and work in progress.

Tuesday:

Above is the drawing, still unfinished that I have been working on for the last few days and have more to do tonight.

Today started with me heading up to Barnoon Workshop for my Tour & Draw Tuesday event.

The first thing we encountered on our tour was at Alfred Wallis's grave and a wreath had been laid to commemorate his death on this day in 1942. We then went off around town chatting and drawing and had a thoroughly good time, thanks to Carl and Kate from BID St Ives for joining us. I am hoping the weather holds for tomorrows outdoor drawing session, we will see.

This afternoon was a flat afternoon day of work and I have now returned home to eat and draw and relax and hope fully get that drawing finished, more about that tomorrow no doubt.

Cheers!

Barnoon Workshop drawing class and some of my work.

Monday:

Well Monday starts as Monday does with a drawing class at Barnoon Workshop led by my wife Zoe Eaton and today we had some gladioli to draw and with Hokusai as lose inspiration I did this drawing below.

Above is a drawing I started last night but have not had enough time to complete it. It is lovely to have family down here staying but it does tend to slow my drawing down. I have continued with some of 'The Monochrome Set' themes but added colour. I will keep on finding gaps to continue this work although we are all out for a quiz tonight so I am doing this blog early so I don't miss doing it later and it is part of my daily discipline and has been since the end of February 2016. So over 500 days in and with over 27,000 views so far I am pleased with it.

As this is a 'quick' blog and early I will leave you with some varied drawings done on various surfaces.

Cheers, see you tomorrow.

Half Term Wednesday and recent drawings.

Above is another new drawing as I tend to post most days in this fashion. So it is another one in the new altered sketchbook work that I am adding to daily. I am hoping that anybody that engages with the book will see some of my thinking behind each page and hopefully get the flow that I think I am putting into it. I am hoping to sell this work when it is finished but I am happy to sell individual art works or whole sketchbooks, I could certainly do with a few more sales. Well that said it is not the only reason I do this but it is nice when it happens and the connection is made with someone else who gets what I do.

Above is an insight into some of the smaller drawings that are in this book. As I might have said before this is a pre-owned and pre-used book and some of the pages have been cut out for other artistic purposes, I draw on what remains.

Above are my last two final drawings from yesterday the full page and opposite left the dots on a reduced page. I will be on this book in a bit making the next drawing.

Above is a drawing that I had thought I'd finished and not in the book, it is a bit of a random drawing for me and I am liking it.

Above is a small art drop that I did in St Ives somewhere........

Random picture, whilst having some down time the light caught in my coffee cup so here it is.

After an early lunch walked back to Barnoon Workshop via Porthmeor Beach.

This afternoon was a busy one Erin Lacy ran a block printing workshop for 13 whilst Zoe and myself ran an Alfred Wallis painting workshop for Tate members. Before the painting started we went up to have a sketch and a look at Alfred's grave designed by Ben Nicholson and realised on Bernard Leach's tiles. Beautifully done.

I am off to draw, Cheers All!

New drawing and last weeks art drop has not been found yet.

Above is a drawing I did last night after returning from the jam night I was involved in and I am pleased with it.

Got up quite early today after the late but fun night yesterday because we had a parcel being picked up so whilst waiting for them to pick up I managed another couple of obliterarty drawings. I am liking the way this book is going and will be working on it when I return from giving my Wednesday evening guitar class.

I think theses drawings show a breadth of pattern and ides that I am satisfied with.

Above is a very small art drop I did last week that still hasn't been found, maybe I should have put it somewhere obvious but hey I am sure someone will find sometime in the future.

The above two are postcard sized drawings yet again from Jordan Jackson lens he managed some 60 plus images so I still have a few more to show. I am ever grateful for his effort.

I am off to teach and then when I get back to draw.

Cheers.

Starting the week. Drop In and Draw and Abstract Drawing.

As we start the week I am showing you three drawings I did last evening as I have started on a new obliterarty book. Volume Two.

The front cover of the book is above and is a fairly straightforward grid drawing using two different Windsor & Newton promarkers.

Above is the second drawing done on the inside cover of this second altered book. The images in the book are starting to push me into slightly new forms of my work. So I have obliterated a circular picture of a horse, still just about visible and I do like that fact. Maybe in future I will do a new work based on this but of course it will be quite different in some ways like colour and probably more.

This third drawing I did last night is a finer type of grid drawing than I normally do but I like that and it does make the text nearly invisible unless you really look.

This book that I have started obliterating was a book donated to us by St Ives artists Archa and Sans Robinson. Sans had used some bits of the book in his work and this book is The Darkling Thrush poems by Thomas Hardy and illustrated by Gordon Beningfield. Over the years I have come across quite a few of his books on Butterflies and Plants. I even had a signed copy of one of his books that one of my students gave me many years ago as a thank you but I do not have any real attachment to the illustrations in this book so I will play away with it.

Today nearly started like any other Monday morning except my wife woke with a very bad back so I got to take the Drop In and Draw session at Barnoon Workshop. I normally do the abstract drawing class but after attending and drawing real things for two years I am starting to be comfortable with taking the odd class which was what I had to do today. I ended up with 5 students this morning and I think we had a good session that was fun and informative and personally I love starting the week with drawing. It sets me up with creativity boost at the beginning of the week.

The rest of the day has been taken up with life stuff but I will be drawing after I finish this blog whilst watching The Art Of France on the BBC by Andrew Graham Dixon who I greatly respect. I know I consider myself as  an artist that does contemporary abstract drawing but I can't get enough of most art, whether I really like it or just respect it. It is good to be informed and educated.

So below are three drawing that I have done in the last month or so that yet again were photographed by Jordan Jackson. These are some of my more minimal works and I hope you like them, I hope everyone likes them but I do know that this is not the case.

Well I am off to draw and watch Andrew Graham Dixon, Cheers all.

Dot Theory.

Above is another new drawing that I completed in last evenings drawing session, It is not large but it does have a presence.

Above is a drawing I did a couple of summers ago for and exhibition, I like the challenge of draing on different surfaces.

Above and below are painted dots on a canvas bag, I like to keep my pens in them.

Above and below are several drawings that I have done on some bark that was donated by our friend Tree Stewart. I like to get donations and challenges to draw on I wander what I will get given this coming year.

The title of this blog is 'Dot Theory' which goes someway to encapsulating what i do in my 'contemporary abstract drawing'. Today I have included some dictionary definitions of dot/dots.

noun

noun: dot; plural noun: dots

1. 1.

   a small round mark or spot.

   "a symbol depicted in coloured dots"

   synonyms:

   spot, speck, fleck, speckle, point, pinpoint, pinprick, mark, dab; More bit, particle, atom, molecule, iota, jot, mote, mite; full stop, decimal point; raremacule, macula "the photograph is made up of tiny dots"

   • a small round mark written or printed as part of an i or j, as one of a series of marks to signify omission, or as a full stop.

     synonyms:

     spot, speck, fleck, speckle, point, pinpoint, pinprick, mark, dab; More bit, particle, atom, molecule, iota, jot, mote, mite; full stop, decimal point; raremacule, macula "the photograph is made up of tiny dots"

   • Music

     a small round mark used to denote the lengthening of a note or rest by half, or to indicate staccato.
   • the shorter signal of the two used in Morse code.
   • used to refer to an object that appears tiny because it is far away.

     "they were mere dots on the horizon now"
   • used to indicate the punctuation separating parts of an email or website address.

     "OUP dot com"

verb

verb: dot; 3rd person present: dots; past tense: dotted; past participle: dotted; gerund or present participle: dotting

1. 1.

   mark with a small spot or spots.

   "wet spots of rain began to dot his shirt"

   synonyms:

   spot, fleck, bespeckle, mark, dab, stipple, pock, freckle, sprinkle, dust; More literarybefleck, bestrew, besprinkle "spots of rain began to dot his shirt"

   • (of a number of items) be scattered over (an area).

     "churches dot the countryside"

     synonyms:

     scatter, pepper, sprinkle, strew, litter; More punctuate, stud, cover; spread, disperse, intersperse, distribute "North Africa was once dotted with freshwater lakes"

   • place a dot over (a letter).

     "you need to dot the i"
   • Music

     mark (a note or rest) to show that the time value is increased by half.

     "a dotted minim
2. I am off to draw and relax, cheers all until tomorrow.

New pebble again, Barnoon Workshop and stuff.

Above is the pebble drawing I managed to do last night and I am really pleased with, I do love drawing on many different media as you will probably know if you have read a few of my blogs already.

Well today has been a very busy day for me and Zoe, this morning we had a 'Alfred Wallis Tour and Paint' workshop. I toured around town with our band of merry students, they all did plenty of sketches as inspiration for their Wallis-esque paintings and above is a collection of them.

After that session we had a small wedding party making lanterns and bunting.

We had a few things to sort out and finally finished near sunset and below is a picture of it for you.

It looks like I have a busy day tomorrow also as I have a packed beginners guitar workshop from 11am.
So I am off to draw and get in the right headspace for it, I do find that drawing is a very relaxing thing to do to clear the mind a little and focus.

Bye for now.....

Alfred Wallis Tour and Paint, new drawings, art drop started.....

Above is a smallish drawing I did last night on some marbled paper that my wife Zoe Eaton made, it makes for an interesting background and a change.

Above is a small scale drawing on a bit of Fabriano 300gsm. I do really enjoy working on a small scale as well as a large scale.

Above is the start of another art drop I am preparing.

Today I received new that I am on another art platform online so check out my new little corner here: http://www.artspread.co.uk/bobby-wotnot/  I wonder if it will generate more interest in my work, I do hope so.

I have put out two shots at galleries in the last week and sadly so far have not heard anything back, Oh well. I will keep trying as the life of an artist is much like being a musician, sending of demos and only sometimes getting a reply......

I took a Father and daughter on an Alfred Wallis tour today which was fun even though it was drizzling and the art they made when the got back to Barnoon Workshop was fab....

Daughter's

Dad's

Wotnot's

See you tomorrow...