Leytonstone Art trail and Pic and Mix

My painting," The Call of the Soul" above is on show at the annual Leytonstone Festival and Art trail which is running at the moment. I have a piece in the Waltham Forest Arts Club group show in the One Stop shop and was part of the E17 designers craft fair in the library at the weekend.

In the One Stop shop,I really liked Martin Adam's piece ."Water lily" a lovely elegant and pure form. Shirley Pountney has a great relief painting on handmade paper using the symbolism of the temple. I enjoyed Roan Allen 's pieces using cows too.


The old Woolworths shop in Leytonstone has been taken over by a large group of local artists for the Art Trail called Pic and Mix and It was great to see the large space being used for something creative. I couldn't help but think how good it would be if the council had the foresight to help develop the space into something vibrant and creative long term. Quite a number of the artists re-used items left behind in the shop or made work in response to the site.




I liked Neil Irons installation, "Standing on one leg waiting for lunch" was a response to his remembering his stint of working in a Woolworth's store on Saturdays. The drawing has one tree for every hour he spent bored standing on one leg waiting for lunch.

The creative use of old plastic buckets as lamps made me smile and around the exhibition were a number of really interesting pieces. The exhibitions are running over the next two weeks.

Drawing at the british Museum

Last week saw me having a few days to draw at the British Museum, through a WEA course. 2 or 3 years ago I went drawing at the museum with the Princes Drawing School and a lovely tutor Francis Hoyland. So when I saw this course advertised I thought it would be great to go back to the British museum collections and do some drawings. Pages from my sketch book here.



Jane was our tutor knowledgeable about the museum, encouraging and thoughtful. It was good to work with a range of materials conte, graphite, watercolour pencils and pen and ink. We spent time drawing in the Greek and Roman galleries, the Asian, African and Japanese galleries and I went into the Americas Gallery. Jane set us some tasks using materials and composition. I think it is good for me to work within some parameters sometimes, it helps break patterns of work, style and subject matter.

I also took photographs in the galleries, drawing really helps to see things more clearly, and this reflected in my photographic eye. There were still some objects that resisted being photographed but I was happy not to pursue them.