Drawing the Line lives on . . .

Drawing the line was my first blog.  In common with many people I  write short posts on Facebook and Twitter but I wanted a forum for my writing on art and Blogger was a useful alternative to my iWeb website. 

A lot has been written about the demise of iWeb and I for one was not amused when the host stopped hosting ! Having spent a long time refining my website - it disappeared (fortunately not without warning). Consequently I had to look for another host for www.chriswoodartist.com and I chose wordpress. Over the last year I've built myself a wordpress blog and added a number of pages that showcase various strands of my practice as an artist and designer. The outcome was that Drawing the Line almost became redundant. I've since decided to rekindle the flame on Blogger and go back to my original intention which was to use this blog to discuss drawing. I'll also use this page to publicise my master classes and workshops. 

My exciting news is that on March 18th I will be running a one day workshop: [viewPOINT] contemporary approaches to LOCATION drawing and painting with www.QoEcreative.com at Stansted House, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire UK. We aim to use the Dutch Garden and the Arboretum as inspiration. The course is intended for beginners through to practicing artists and will be a great day out! We have reduced the fees to £95 for the day as it is early in the season. There is a contingency plan if the weather is less than perfect and we will be able to use The Servants Quarters of Stansted House. I was lucky enough to go on a tour of the servants quarters about a year ago and they are not only extensive but largely untouched since the halcyon days of the 1920's! Upstairs Downstairs has nothing on Stansted House with its huge kitchen and subterranean accommodation block. We have limited the numbers to give the artists lots of one to one tuition - so if you would like to book a place on the course get in quick and contact www.qoecreative.com 

Bless me father for I have sinned !

Despite all my good intentions I've not  posted much on here recently so - have a look at my wordpress blog !

http://chriswoodartist.wordpress.com/

chris

http://web.me.com/chriswoodartist

For all those lovely people who visited my website (http://web.me.com/chriswoodartist) over the years - (yes you) I have some sad news ! The wonderful people at Mobile Me have stopped hosting iWeb : thus my mobile me website ceased to exist as from midnight last night. I still have www.chriswoodartist.com which I will revamp over the next month or so - in the meantime please be patient - normal service will resume as soon as possible - as they say !!

I'm going to hop it now - see you later ! C

2 Years, 2 Studios, 2 Haircuts & 2 Intakes

Firstly please accept my profound apologies for not blogging in the past two years - hopefully I will remedy this situation in the next 2 years !

Over the last 2 years I have made a variety of artwork both in my South coast studio and in my fleeting pilgrimages to a bolt-hole in East Anglia. I have begun a nostagia trip involving lots of photography, the odd sketch and the odd painting. My lastest oil is on mdf and is 600 mm square and this is a format that I will stick to for a series of food related diversions - in this case - a painting of the Ferry Cafe in Felixstowe Ferry, at the mouth of the river Deben in Suffolk. The twist is that it is not as the cafe is in 2012 but a return to slightly scruffier, more atmospheric and more nostalgic days - before computer cut vinyl signs, turquoise paint and jet ski's. There, I've said it - I promised I'd never mention the mechanical, aquatic equivalent to a bumble bee trapped in a jam jar but that's that. I prefer the quiet, halcyon days of gaff rigged sail and bouyancy aids stuffed with kaypok.

In my Portsmouth studio - as those intrepid and lovely people witnessed for themselves, at Artspace Open Studios, last weekend, I've been working on a labour of love - a large historical reconstruction of The Battle of The Solent in 1545. More specifically, an oil painting on the finest quality linen. The scene depicts, The Mary Rose, a Tudor warship and the love of the indomitable, Henry the Eighth. The scenario is 5 minutes before she went to the bottom of the briny and she is surrounded by the French and English fleets. I am packing in lots of detail and working with the precision of a Swiss clock-maker - only I am using 0000 brushes with about 10 tiny hairs ! I would be totally lost without my trusty magnifying glass but that's another story. In addition I have probably made a couple of hundred life drawings and a collection of small wooden 3D pieces.

Haircuts only happen once every year so I have probably saved myself a fortune over the last thirty years. I go from a collar length, almost nautical look to a pseudo shoulder length 1970's rock guitarist's style and I like and am happy with them both. I go to a fashionable gents salon in Albert Road, Southsea and the three staff are all crazy - so once a year we meet up for twenty minutes or so,  chew the fat and thin out the hair.  The aging  process gives me a helping hand with the thinning and now in the summer I sport a trendy Panama Hat to avoid a sunburnt cranium !

I have just survived - well almost - a second intake of students. In fact it is the last intake as I am leaving regular employment as an art teacher to become a gentleman artist, wit and raconteur ! I will continue my Advanced Life Drawing Workshops and take on a few private students on a one to one basis and I'll also do the odd master class too but I really want to focus on my own work wherever and whatever that might be.

More ramblings later - not two years later - I promise !

saatchionline.com

http://www.saatchionline.com/profiles/index/id/177433

I spent yesterday putting a few bits on saatchionline.com and will aim to add one good quality print per month from now on. I'm not really a printmaker but then most artists dabble with print from time to time. As a graphics graduate I feel I really should play more with the manual techniques that I learned at art college back in the early 1970's - when computers were only just appearing in art colleges and personal computers were 10 years away ! Now colleges have rows of computers and very few easels ! Print rooms are becoming a thing of the past. Dinosaurs like me try to encourage our students to produce hand made artwork but it's a losing battle - students prefer Photoshop and photography rather than drawing and print-making. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they realise the limitations of Photoshop. There has been a resurgence of interest in illustration and who knows maybe a printmaking revolution is in the air too ! I for one will be doing my bit ! Watch this space and view my profile on http://www.saatchionline.com/profiles/index/id/177433

17 YEARS, PROJECTS & DRAWING THE LINE

Good morning world and good morning all you creative souls. Life at "Wood Villas" began about three hours ago when I was rudely woken up by a pressing need to micturate. The house was and still is very cold, despite the fact that the heating is on and the radiators are doing their level best to counteract the effects of the arctic climate outside ! After sorting out my own plumbing - I looked around the lavatory and was reminded that I still haven't completed boxing in the pipe-work that was replaced when we moved in 17 years ago !

The subject of this mornings cautionary ramblings is BEWARE of "PROJECTS" that take over your entire life ! My mental note to myself is "DRAW THE LINE". I seem to have very little resistance and rarely say NO, when perhaps I should. I also have a habit of starting one project before completing others – consequently my life is a constant whirlwind of chasing my own tail !

My parents are to blame - encouraging me to subscribe to the Robert Burns school of “try, try again” and that the impossible is a challenge to be overcome. I have always bought houses that were not quite like those that other more sensible people bought. All have been “projects” in need of large amounts of tender loving care – (in short major restoration).

When I was at art college I used to earn my way by spending holidays working on building sites and I learned not only how to feed cement mixers but many useful DIY tips that stood me in good stead when I bought my first house. It was a good few years before I’d saved up a deposit for my first “PROJECT”- a three bedroom terraced house on a busy road in South Wimbledon but this was the start of many such projects, some of which remain far from being completed.

Whilst my first house was structurally sound, it was in need of a lot of updating and for every yard of wallpaper that I stripped off – two yards of plaster fell off with it. I have fond memories of rebuilding the outside wall of the bathroom in a snowstorm in 1976 ! In addition, the bathroom required two new window frames, which I built and installed, along with a new bathroom suite, stud wall and tongue and groove pine paneling, to which was applied 6 coats of yacht varnish – the later being a perk of working for a ships chandlery in Notting Hill Gate.

Intelligent people buy houses that are sound in structure, smartly decorated and that don’t need more than a lick of paint to make them habitable – I have always bought houses that need much, much more !

An illustration of how long some things have taken me is that a piece of sculpture that I started when I was 17 was finally completed when my daughter was 17 ! I also bought a classic boat when she was about 7 and that is far from complete and my granddaughter will be seven next year – I’d better get a move on !

On my easel at the moment is a painting that I’ve been working on for nearly two years and there’s still a lot that needs doing to complete the 5 foot canvas. My excuse for not visiting my studio today is that its too cold and there’s too much frozen snow between the house and the converted chapel down the road !

I will go there tomorrow and add a few more details with my 0000 brush – and hopefully this PROJECT will be a little nearer to completion. I will also add a few more bits of timber to my lavatory too !

The moral of these ramblings is : BE CAREFUL – SOME PROJECTS TAKE A LONG, LONG TIME TO COMPLETE – or is that just me ?

Typographic Diversion

As this is the first day of my Christmas Holidays I thought I'd celebrate with a typographic diversion ! The image is simply a doodle generated in Photoshop.

The multi-layered pattern began by opening an A4 page in Photoshop, then selecting a colour, font and size, before typing "CHRIS". Next the pattern was selected using the "MARQUEE" tool, then the type was "RASTERISED" by choosing "LAYER" and "TYPE". Finally to make the pattern I selected "FILTER" then "PATTERN MAKER" and before hitting "GENERATE" I experimented by adjusting the "SMOOTHNESS", "SAMPLE DETAIL", "OFFSET" and "AMOUNT OF OFFSET". Next I added four more layers each with a different colour and font size. Each layer was then played with in terms of the CHARACTER of the LAYER and CHANGING the default setting of "NORMAL" to "EXCLUSION", "DIFFERENCE", "PINLIGHT", "OVERLAY" or "SCREEN". I also added a coloured background layer as a white background can be a little bland. The final touches were re-arranging the order of the layers and adjusting the colours. Like it or hate it - the outcome has a festive look, which was what I was looking for. In addition, the theme of my AS Graphics first piece of coursework was "LOST & FOUND" and the fact that you can't actually read the word CHRIS is a bonus !

As I mentioned, its now the holidays so I should get the time to get in my studio and do some more to my infamous "Tudor Painting" and who knows write a few more posts here ! Don't forget to check my Twitter page too ! chriswoodartist

bye for now !