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Changes

8/8/2018

Two of the many new books I have/will need over the coming year.

Big changes are coming in September, which is why I am writing this post.

Since returning to England in 2014, I've continued to work as an illustrator, clients have included both National Trust Stowe and National Trust Bourne Mill, and as an artist, having drawings selected into two London exhibitions and many commissions. Starting in 2014, I have been teaching art and giving art-themed illustrated talks and courses, working with organisations such as The Roald Dahl Museum and Old Bank Studios, Harwich. That will all continue. However, I will not continue with art group demos and/or workshops, nor private classes during weekdays.

What I have discovered over the last four years, is that I love teaching art and I have decided to expand on that, so in September I am going to be training to teach art to secondary school students through a school based system. Please note the UK government adverts about bursaries for trainee teachers does NOT apply to art teacher trainees! Therefore, a big change will be a severe lack of travel and days out over the next school year as my saving will not stretch to it. Visitors always welcome here in Suffolk :)

Over the next year, I'm not sure how much time I'll have for creating my own work nor whether the daily social media posts can continue (maybe weekly?. Please bear with me during this transition year. Thank you.

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What if we could see colours differently?

10/7/2018

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Negative macro collage. ©Sue Pownall 2018

The last part of this year's DLaB asked the question What if we could see colours differently?" and shared this video (below) of Neil Harbisson's Ted Talk, which I found fascinating. Harbisson does not see any colours: his vision is in greyscale.

Kandinsky: Impression III – Konzert (1911)

Exploring a connection between colours and sounds, I found this BBC article on synaesthesia, a union of the senses, i-see-songs-in-colour According to the article, there are up to 70 different types of synaesthesia from tasting the time to smelling a symphony, although the most common involve colour. I hadn't realised that Wassily Kandinsky's abstract paintings were his experience of seeing music. This article includes links to the concert Kandinsky heard: music-art-schoenberg-kandinsky. I am not convinced that this piece is about seeing the music rather it seems an emotional response to the concert.

Going a stage further, another question posed in this unit was How do blind people perceive art? and linked to activities to explore this as well as the tech apps etc that are now around to aid a visually-impaired person. I explored further and found a great article on visual impairment and sight is this one, What do blind people see, that linked interviews with photographs of the interviewees and then an artist created images inspired by them. However, what really interested me was the specific question annd I found this on the BBC website bbc.com/culture with a film on Lisa Squirrel, who is visually impaired yet still has a passion for visual art.

Questions for self reflection:

What experiences do you already have?
In what areas would like to stretch yourself?
What new skills do you need to learn?

In many ways, I have already started to gain new knowledge if not new skills through my research following this unit. I would like to stretch myself further in creating opportunities for students to have these links between the senses, connecting sounds and colours for example, and not just have the traditional emotive responses to art and by extention producing art.

As a realist who draws in great detail, I interested in exploring how to make my art more acceptable to those who are visually impaired. It is already in grey scale for those who can see tones, but do I need to scale up, add an oral description... hmmm

Last year, I created a colour collage, it's here: White. This year, I chose to do another one. As it hasn't rained for weeks and the prevailing colour is yellow, that was my choice for it. Furthermore, I added week one's what-if-i-could-change-size and took macro photos.

Yellow. ©Sue Pownall 2018

Firstly, I converted the collage to grey scale, as Harbisson would see it.

Greyscale. ©Sue Pownall 2018

Finally, I created a negative of the collage - at the top of this post.

That brings me to the end of another thought provoking course.

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What if we moved to space?

18/6/2018

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Week 2 of the DLab Erasmus project focused on design thinking and their

"pedagogical approach was based on an interpretation of ‘design thinking’ (Kimbell, 2015), an approach that begins with empathising, and puts an emphasis on defining a key question and then framing a problem. This is more akin to problem finding rather than problem solving. This model was relevant, as we wanted to highlight creativity alongside the criticality of the scientific process."

What caught my attention was the unit on designing a new planet and started by looking at how our interaction with Earth has led to pollution, the extinction of bees, insects and other animals, plus created radiation etc. This is a matter close to my heart, and back in Doha I sneaked Al Gore's amazing film An Inconvenient Truth into teaching trainees at Qatar Petroleum. If we do the same on our new planet as we do to Earth, we have the potential to make a new planet uninhabitable too.

However, we do need to survive and this trailer gives a clue to what we would need to do to survive - if I still taught TESOL this would be a great way to link language and science teaching.

I have used this design thinking process in the past, but currently cannot see how I could use this with adult art students. I may revisit this when I am teacher training in autumn. Or do you have some ideas for me?

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What if I could change size?

16/6/2018

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Last year I completed a DLaB Erasmus course called Technology Outdoors, which aimed, amongst other things, to promote digital learning across the boundaries of physical spaces, across curriculum subjects and across languages and cultures, to facilitate collaborative learning across national boundaries. This year's course is STEM to STEAM, which is adding the arts to science, technology, engineering and maths building on the technology outdoors by promoting real world exploration and creative problem solving through physical and digital making.

I've just completed week one and explored the concept of art helping us to visualise scientific data - looking at the hidden world. On a wonderful, but time consuming wander through amazing photograohic magnifications, I stumbled across the former biologist Robert Rock Belliveau, who on retiring started taking amazing magnified photos of fruit and vegetables. There's a great article here.

Throughout June, I have also been participating in a challenge to create a daily direct watercolour, that is a painting without any under drawing. More info here. Combining that with this course, I created this direct watercolour painting from a magnified image of a corn husk with silk from an image by Robert Rock Belliveau. (sorry the photo has lost some of the vividness of the original)

I can see this sort of activity as a great jumping off point into further art and/or science.

If you are interested last year's DLab posts are here:

Technology Outdoors: Creating Trails
Technology Outdoors: Art in the Environment
Technology Outdoors: Wild Writing
Technology Outdoors: Science Outdoors

Now it's time to start week two on design thinking.

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Loosestrife

30/5/2018

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Click images to enlarge.

Page in progress

I've planted a wildflower patch in the garden, as I shared in my post here, but this yellow wildflower has selfseeded (thank you birds) in the grasses.

I believe it is a Loosestrife, which is the common name for the genus Lysimachia.

It has been a grey day, as the sun came out late evening, I did this little watercolour in my nature journal. I will add to the page when the flowers come out.

For this nature journal, I am using a Seawhite of Brighton A5 travel journal. This image was created with Sennelier watercolours.

The finished page... for now.

What have you drawn or painted recently? Why not tell me in a comment?

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A Cabbage White & Weevils

30/4/2018

The next day, it was sunny and warm, so I caught the cabbage white butterfly, which had spent the night in my kitchen, and released it onto the forget-me-nots in my front garden. In my new nature journal, I recorded this in watercolour and coloured pencils.

©Sue Pownall

Today, I was out in the rain to biologically treat my containers against vine weevils, so I put it in my nature journal.

Do you nature journal? Leave a link in a comment and I'll check it out.

Nature Journal - a new diversion

24/4/2018

For Earthday2018, an urbansketcher friend posted an invitation, a nature challenge #sowinghopefornature, which included starting a nature journal. (Read the post here). I've been having a muse-free year and think this is the incentive I need - I'm even blogging again.

First, I got out a new Seawhite of Brighton A5 Artists Travel Journal Sketchbook and attacked it with a stencil that was left over from a workshop, thereby commiting myself to the task.

Then, my furry assistant and I headed into the garden - it was a glorious sunny day - and started my first spread and, as last year, I celebrated Earthday with a watercolour. On 8th April, I sowed a corner of my garden with wildflower seeds, cornfield annuals, plus a plug of Digitalis and one of Knautia Arvensis. They were last year's seeds, but they are starting to grow 🌱 In front, is a willow fence is to stop my lovely assistant digging them up. Below are photos of this first spread.

With text added to the spread. (Click to see the image larger)

I had several ideas for a second spread, yay I have a muse, but when driving to visit my mum there was a hitchhiker, a cabbage white butterfly, on my dashboard and then windscreen. (I pulled over, parking, and turning the engine off three times to take photos and to try to let it out). Therefore, my second spread had to be of the hitchhiker.

I don't like handlettering, so am going through a trial and error period whilst I find a style that's both fast and neat. Here's the hitchhiker...

and a bad photo of the spread.

Today, I managed to get the butterfly out of my car, fed it a little sugar water, and it is currently on my begonia in the kitchen as it's too cold to put it outside.

Unfortunately, due to my teaching commitments, I didn't have the time to add anything to the journal, I will do soon, but am not putting any pressure on myself to do X per day, week, or month. Please check back here soon.

...and the winner is...

4/9/2017

@DegasWorld picks the winner

Aided by my furry assistant, the name out of the hat (aka paper bag) was
Tina Koyama.

Tina please could you message me with your postal address please. Your prize of Spectrum Noir pens will be coming your way soon.

Thank you to everyone who participated.

******

If you want to know more about Spectrum Noir, they are a Crafter's Companion brand and the two website addresses are as follows:

www.spectrumnoir.com and www.craftercompanion.co.uk

Spectrum Noir Giveaway

19/8/2017

Over the last month, I have been testing Spectrum Noir Art Liners. Although I normally use black pens, it was interesting to have a range of colours, brown and grey pens.

I have never really got on with brushpens, as each of these sets contained 1 or more along with a set of coloured brush pens, I started with them. I took a purple and green to the Wimbledon finals. Having tried to sketch at tennis tournaments before, I knew I spend all the time watching and not sketching. I was fortunate to get a front row seat at court 12 for the invitation men's double final. I sketched Dutch pair Eltingh and Haarhuis between games, then used the brush pens to add the pop of colour. I was impressed with the brush pens, unlike others that I have used the brush wasn't too long, so they were easy to control and gave a smooth line of colour.

Eltingh & Haarhuis in the invitation men's double final, which they won.

Next, I arranged to meet some friends to Drink and Draw at a local pub. It was a lovely evening and I took the whole set of coloured fineliners in anticipation of lots to sketch. As we sat outside, I tried to capture the shadows cutting across a cornfield. The sketch is not the most successful, but full marks to the smooth flow and consistancy of the pens.

I sketched and drew with the pens over the next few days, but the next major challenge was the IAAF World Athletics in London. There was so much going on that it was really difficult to sketch, but I managed this one between events. The photo left shows me sketching in my seat and I found the pens, both artliners and brushes, great for quick sketching.

High jump in the Olympic Stadium, London.

Finally, I used the black pens, including the brush pen, whilst doing some studies for a commission.

Did you know you could commission me to draw or paint your garden? Message me for more details if you are interested.

I have continued to use the various pens past the month's test period. Spectrum Noir have won me over to using brush pens and the artliners are now part of my regular sketching kit.

Now to the exciting part...
Would you like to win all the pens in the photo at the top of this post?
You could own:

SN Artliner - Bright (8pc)
SN Artliner - Bright - Brush (8pc)
SN Artliner - Black (6pc)
SN Artliner - Neutral (6pc)
SN artliner - Hand Lettering DVD

This bundle is worth £74.95!

Just comment on this post stating the drawing you like the most on this site
(not one in this post please).

The lucky winner will be randomly drawn on Sunday 3rd September.

*****
If you want to know more about Spectrum Noir, they are a Crafter's Companion brand and the two website addresses are as follows:

www.spectrumnoir.com and www.craftercompanion.co.uk

2016 review

16/1/2017

2016 in review from Sue Pownall

<<Previous

Changes

What if we could see colours differently?

What if we moved to space?

What if I could change size?

Loosestrife

A Cabbage White & Weevils

Nature Journal - a new diversion

...and the winner is...

Spectrum Noir Giveaway

2016 review

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