Curiosity exhibition and sketches

I caught the last day of the Curiosity exhibition at the Turner Contenporary Gallery on Sunday.

I had chance to see the amazing glass sea creatures again and Turner's watercolour studies of birds.

I also watched Tacita Dean's films one of ,which was a film of the artist Claes Oldenberg Manhatton Mouse Museum in his studio, cleaning and re arranging his collection of objects.

I am always pleased to see other artists studios and what they keep in them, and especially if they seem to collect all sorts of strange objects.. Claes Oldenberg had many such objects from platform boots and a childs trainer, to a mug with an apple core on it, antique perfume bottles and

He moved around on an wheeled office chair, dusting the pieces with a paintbrush and moving some from box shelf to box shelf.

A fascinating study and I was pleased to see it. Often I don't seem to have the time or energy to watch films as well as see exhibitions, so it's good I live close to the gallery.

Tacita Dean's other film, Prisoner Pair was a close up of 2 pears in a bottle of Schnapps, sunlight falls across the bottle and casts shadows, bubbles and small pieces of pear move in the liquid. Strangely mesmerising. I was glad to have watched them before the exhibition closed.

Out side the gallery I sat down for a few minutes taking a few photogrphs and sketching.

The next exhibition at the Turner Contemporary has Sketches from Turner and Constable, which looks great and opens on the 5th October 2013.

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/