Clay Models

Models made using Flax paper clay which was fired to 1085˚C then painted with tempera.

Spring Portraits

1. Photos taken with a model of Able Seaman Simon, a famous ships' cat who was injured by shrapnel during the Yangtse Incident in 1949, He was awarded the Dickin medal posthumously for cheering up the hospitalised crew who were badly injured during the attack. Portraits were made by tracing with carbon paper, that old standby. I had to explain the original use of carbon in the context of typewriters which are yet another alien concept for today's child. The pictures were painted in watercolour and mounted onto cardboard which had been decorated with straws and painted.

2013 Calendar Project

The project began with a discussion about the seaons of the year, weather conditions associated with the seasons, and warm:hot, cool:cold colours. Each club member made 4 large abstract paintings to represent each season, then using a frame cut out 3 relevant compositions from the main painting to represent each month. These were mounted in the printed calendars which I had made. It took a lot of careful work and everyone approached the project thoughtfully and produced many unique interesting images. They were all very pleased with the end results.

'Bird' pots

The flax clay was rolled out on a board using 2 sticks to ensure that the slab was an even thickness. Then the fun part, the clay was impressed with shells, star anise, buttons, screws and a varity of other stamps and mark-making objects. Beaks, tail-like handles, eyes, eye-lids etc were added, securely fixed to the pot with slip.

It's a Barn Owl..... obviously!

The consensus is a Woodpecker

This reminds me of Fawkes the phoenix from Harry Potter

This 'bird' ultimately became a cat with overtones of an Egyptian deity.

"Rooks"

I brought in 2 stuffed rooks borrowed from a friend who had taken up taxidermy during her degree course. All the members of Susan's Art Club  were thrilled to be able to study such large dramatic birds at close quarters and to be able to stroke their silky feathers.We discussed the complex process of recreating animals for display as they have all seen the marvellous animals exhibited in the Royal Museum of Scotland, also the fact that the wingfeathers are deep purple and brown rather than black.

 We discussed  how to express the tones in the drawing from the darkest to the lightest where light shines on the feathers. We used sharp 2B pencils and rubbers. I now think that a 4B or 6B pencil may have worked well for the darker tones but there would have been even more smudges.

 The children had to position themselves where both eyes and beaks were visible. However some positions were inevitably more difficult to draw from than others.

 Good efforts in concentration and observation were achieved with every artist capturing the beady eyes, sharp talons and powerful beak of the rook.

Fireworks over Edinburgh

A lively bonfire scene

A cityscape in wax crayon and watercolour

Fireworks above Edinburgh

Towers and fireworks

A dramatic finale