Bird paintings at Turner Contemporay

The Turner Contemporary Gallery held another couple of art sessions last week, with stuffed birds as subjects.
Some of the birds came from the collection at Quex Park. I do feel a bit sad when I see stuffed birds and animals, the owl I painted was a bit battered too, but a lot of the children really liked being able to touch some of the birds and were excited by them.

Of course upstairs in the exhibition there are some amazing watercolours of birds that Turner himself painted, which I've mentioned before.


So without trying to think of how good Turner's are, I had a go at a few watercolours of the birds.
I have been enjoying spending time engaged with the art sessions at the gallery and with the fact that people of all ages are welcome and a lot of children and some parents also join in the sessions.

I look forward to the next ones.

Broadstairs Folk week.

I managed to get to the last day of the Broadstairs Folk week. That day we had the only a bit of rain in the week.

But I really enjoyed my short  time there, starting with a performance by Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham in the Old Curiosity Shop cafe.
Lovely cafe, small intimate space and great performance. Keith and Sylvia both played concertinas and sang with grace and humour.Their website here where you can hear some of their music.

I walked along the promenade and watched several Morris sides including Dead Horse Morris from Whitstable, there site here.http://deadhorse.org.uk/ 

The bandstand and area around it played host to childrens entertainment and was full to bursting with families enjoying themselves.

Musicians were having a jamming session in the shelters where I lingered for a little while and the markets had some good stuff, a mixture of festival alternative type clothes crafts, foods and collectables.

Hopefully I'll be able to make more of the week next year, definately recommended.

Wild man life drawing at Turner Contemporary

The Turner Contemporary gallery held a couple of Wild man drawing sessions last week.
I managed to go along on Thursday and join in with the session.

I was intrigued with the subject matter, and indeed there was actually a wildman and his partner and baby, all dressed in a range of furs and fabrics.

They posed behind a cloth leaving us with great shadows to draw and also came out for us to draw.

Most of the poses were very short but I enjoyed working with my drawing pen and seeing the adults and children working along side with me.

The Turner Gallery does put on very good workshops and sessions, a lot of which are open for adults with and without children, so its worth looking at their programme.  Website here http://www.turnercontemporary.org/

Margate carnival

The annual Margate carnival went ahead on Sunday  after some fears that it might be cancelled because Mick Tomlinson a stalwart organiser of the carnival for the last 57 years was wanting to step down. He agreed  fortunately to oversee this years event and prepare to hand over to a new group of volunteers.

Fortunately he continued in the role this year, but it reminded me that a lot of community events are reliant on the energy and commitment of one or a small group of people for their continued existence.

It was a very hot day, I took some shade under the balcony near the gardens while I and  the crowds around me waited for the procession.

The street traders were out in force with their wrigglers on sticks, balloons, candy floss and toffee apples.

I still like the fact that these events are with the sea and beach in the background, something quite different from London.

I enjoyed the dancers, costumes and floats. The swan dancers costumes were beautiful, the samba and tropical themed danceres were energetic and brightly colourful with that real sense of a hot day.

The mechanical lions were great and Binbot pretty amazing, made from wheelie bins.

People seemed to be enjoying themselves and Margate seemed to come alive with all the crowds and energetic atmosphere.