Bloggity blog

[amberdreams]

Haven't been around much recently - real life, huh? This was all good things though (apart from me dragging a bed onto Paul's toes and crushing them, that is). So here's everything in bite-sized chunks.

Arty Farty stuff

I started my nightschool art class last night, and apart from the fact that too many of the attendees seemed to want to talk about art instead of actually doing it, I think it's going to be fun. The chap taking the class seems nice and I liked the idea behind the course - to get us using a sketchbook. So yay, I'm being forced to put pencil, pen and paint to paper instead of wimping out in favour of the safety of digital where nobody can hear me scream see all the mistakes I make.

Here's my first night's work.


The idea was to do quick drawings of objects. He'd brought a box full of stuff so we could pick two or three to have a stab at, then we were supposed to try the full object, a close up, a combination of objects, different angles, etc. Then we analysed our approach, and in the second part we were supposed to try something different. Hence on the left I went for lines rather than shape and tone, which was what I'd done on the right for our first go.

Next week - watercolours and complexity! Meep!

London shenanigans

Last Saturday I dragged Paul to London to see Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen in Pinter's No Mans Land. The weather was glorious so we had a nice wander round Trafalgar Square's Malaysian Festival before failing to meet up with my Swiss friends for tea. They were late because they were all at the Sherlocked convention over at the Excel, but they managed to get across to the theatre in time. The play was a curate's egg, good in parts, but I found it mostly boring and pretentious nonsense. Still, it was awesome to see those two giants of the theatre on stage together, and the tickets were only a tenner (flipping bargain!). I then dragged Paul to the stage door and manged to get Sir Ian's auto and a smile from the great man, plus Owen Teale and Damien Moloney, the other two cast members, who were chatty and cute respectively. Sadly Sir Patrick had to dash off, though he still came out past everyone, apologising and waving, which was sweet.

There were some groupies at the stage door who I recognised from going to see Andrew Scott and David Dawson in the Dazzle - my Austrian friend showed me the girl's instagram, it's just chockablock with selfies of her with exactly the same weird smug smile on her face with completely random famous people. I know I'm obsessed with a certain show and two tall handsome boys, but I fail to understand indiscriminate hunting of fame like that. Odd. Oh well, I suppose it's harmless!

Irish interlude

The other nice thing to happen last week was a visit from our delightful friend Paul from Cork. We've known his since 1992 when we met him in Barcelona at the Olympics, and we then became friends over the subsequent years, meeting up at the athletics events round the world. He's been having a rough time since January because his sister was diagnosed with cancer and heart problems last year, then when he had a health check up, they discovered he had similar issues with his heart. Apparently their mum died in her forties from a massive heart attack so it seems to be a genetic problem. So he had a double by-pass op early in the year and is just recovering. That made it extra lovely to see him for a couple of days.

So that's about it, apart from lunching with my cousin who's also having a rough time with her daughter's five children playing up now they are living with their uncle...a long story and not much fun, so I won't dwell. Oh and I've been moving furtniture around and clearing lots of stuff out so I can convert our spare bedroom into an art room. Dust everywhere!

Comments

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

I've not tried them, but it's a good idea. I'll see what I can come up with :) thanks hun :)