A word from Alice - studio stories from Alice Draws the Line
-
Sketching a view or two…
I was thrilled to find a beautiful book all about the Welsh artist Kyffin Williams at our B&B when I went to stay near Aberystwyth last week. His oil paintings are excellent, but my favourites were his drawing - some preliminary studies for oil paintings that followed.
Lots were drawn in graphite and watercolour and I loved them. It inspired me to hunt out art supplies in the town and try and do some of my own landscape pictures
-
Nature notes from May
It has been raining a lot here recently - and the woods are looking all the more lush for it.
These were all taken last Saturday on a trip to Mortimer's Forest just outside Ludlow. There was rain... but there was also some sunshine after -which was really well received as it began the process of drying out the waterproofs!
-
Sketching in a field
The other day I went for a walk from the studio. I popped my A6 sketchbook, pen and watercolours in the pocket of my dungarees (-the fact that these fit in here is an exciting new discovery!) and took some tea too. There is something wonderful about working outdoors. I often fool myself into thinking that I need more kit or more time than I do - my favourite results are often created using a small piece of paper and just a pen and drawn quickly - no fretting or over stressing the situation. -
March meet the maker, part 1
#MarchMeetTheMaker is an excellent project set up by Joanne Hawker, a creative who lives in Somerset. Each March she shares prompts for fellow make... -
Planning for play
It sounds like an oxymoron but I'm planning some time for play. I'm scheduling in some time next week, and hopefully every month to play with different mediums, different scales and different styles in my work. I have realised that it is surprisingly easy to become nestled into a niche, make it comfortable... and stay -
Inspiration station
I have created an 'inspiration station' or mood board /zone or just an area of my studio dedicated to things I want to be looking at.
The idea was suggested by my good friend Louise who I sat back to back with on our Art Foundation year. One of the biggest joys of that year was having a space that had 3 walls that surrounded you and you were encouraged to fill it with things that inspired you, that you were working on, ideas you were playing around with all part of the project or brief you were working on. At the end of that project the whole lot would come down and the white walls would return as the new project started. Soon it would be filled with the colours and ideas for the next phase.
